Differences in Disclosure of Integrated Reports at Energy and Non-Energy Companies

Abstract

Integrated reports combine financial and non-financial data into a comprehensive report outlining the company’s value creation process. Our objective is to find the completeness of disclosures, which is a crucial aspect of an integrated report’s quality. This study contributes to the integrated reporting examination by identifying quantitative and qualitative gaps when applying Integrated Reporting standards, focusing on the energy sector. We conducted the study on 57 published integrated reports of listed companies in Poland. The content of each report was examined for 49 features divided into eight areas. We identify the strengths and weaknesses of current reporting performance and the impact of the company’s sector on reports’ quality. We noted that there are significant differences among the areas. The major problems concern implementing IIRC’s framework on the connections between the business model and the organization’s strategy, risks, opportunities, and performance. Our research also noted that the level of specific disclosures might be related to a company’s ownership structure. We investigated the significance of differences among companies from the energy and non-energy sectors using statistical methods. As a result of the study, we obtained that disclosures’ completeness depends on the operation sector. The companies in the energy sector publish higher-quality integrated reports than companies in the other sectors.

1. Introduction

Energy plays a key role in the economic development. One of the main challenges of the energy companies is to be able to meet the increasing demand for energy while improving air quality and protecting the climate at the same time [1]. The global concept of energy system’s development and the solutions implemented by individual companies have a significant impact on the environment. Therefore, the expectations of disclosure of sustainability issues are directed to such sectors in particular [2], and increasing importance is being attached to this issue [3]. Stakeholders are interested in both financial information on the company’s performance and situation as well as data on potential risks of operations, the impact of the company on society and the environment, human capital management or diversity practices, respect for human rights, and anti-corruption. The expanded scope of reporting in energy industries has been reflected in environmental, CSR, and sustainable development reports. It is not only a response of companies to the expectations directed towards them in the area of social responsibility. It is also believed to positively impact corporate reputation, provide improved access to capital, and competitive advantage on the market [4].

The lack of comparability in time and area in non-financial reports, as well as the difficulty of interpreting an organization’s position due to inconsistencies in financial and non-financial information [5], revealed the need for changes in the scope and form of business reporting and resulted in the introduction of integrated reporting (IR) standards. The International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) published in December 2013 the International Framework for Integrated Reporting, establishing the general principles and elements of report content. The IIRC concept focused on analyzing an organization’s achievements and plans in holistic terms based on integrated thinking [6,7]. It justified the need to publish financial and non-financial information together, taking into account all the organization’s resources and relationships between them. That approach is focused on a significant impact on the company’s value-creating activities in the short term as well as in the medium and long term [8,9].

On one hand, the integrated reporting framework defined a certain level of standardization; on the other, it allowed companies to individualize the content. The first issue seems to be important, especially for investors, because it provides the possibility of comparing organizations in time and space (sector-wise). The second one helps to reduce duplication of content and solutions from other reports. Importantly, it also limits thinking about a company’s financial performance in isolation from other capitals and their flows [8,10]. Therefore, it is crucial to demonstrate the uniqueness of the business model and to specificity of the organization’s processes.

In general, there are few empirical studies [11,12,13] presenting the quality of disclosure in integrated reporting (IR). In particular, there is a lack of research concerning the companies in the energy sector. In the paper by Pistoni et al. [13], based on the analysis of 116 integrated reports issued in the year 2013 and 2014, the authors prove the low quality of the provided IRs. However, subsequent studies indicate that a gradual improvement in the quantity and quality of reported data can be observed [14,15,16]. We intended to determine whether the level of disclosure could be linked to the sector (e.g., energy sector) and individual organizations’ experience in preparing reports. The study covered integrated reports of companies listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange issued since the publication of the International Integrated Reporting Council guidelines.

Our goal was to analyze the quality of Integrated Reports and identify the disclosure gaps of IRs at energy companies compared to other sectors. This aim is formulated in two research hypotheses:

(H1)

Disclosures’ quality of integrated reports shows significant differences regarding the reported area.

(H2)

The level of completeness of disclosures in the IRs of energy sector companies is higher than in the IRs of other sectors.

The remainder of this paper is as follows. Section 2 we conduct the literature review of previously undertaken studies about Integrated Reporting. Section 3 introduces collected data and used methods in this research. Next, we present obtained results divided into eight areas of interest according to the Integrated Report Framework. Finally, we discuss our research in Section 5 and conclude in Section 6. In Appendix A we include the detailed analyzed features of the studied IRs.

2. Literature Review

A literature review conducted by Veltri and Silvestri [10] indicates a few empirical studies on integrated reporting, particularly for the energy sector. A similar conclusion is also drawn by Dumay et al. [17]. However Caraiani et al. [18] note a gradual evolution of IR research from the initial theoretical considerations to the analysis of the impact of reporting on organizational performance. Still, most authors focus on identifying determinants and consequences of IR implementation [19,20,21,22,23]. Research on empirically proven, and not just on the declared costs or benefits of IR, is not frequent. Those studies include analyses of the determinants and processes involved in implementing IR in specific organizations rather than comprehensive examinations [19,24].

Many studies are based on an analysis of the South African experience, where in 2010, the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) was the first to oblige listed companies to adopt integrated reporting [25,26]. In the last decade, we see the development of IR on a voluntarily basis [8], but still, the number of companies presenting such reports is small [13,27,28].

Most authors state that the quality of IR disclosures is not related to the regulations defining reporting obligations. For example, research results presented in Cordazzo et al. [29] show that among 231 Italian listed companies, the inclusion of mandatory disclosures has not improved integrated reporting quality. They maintain that Italian listed companies limit non-financial disclosures to a minimum, regardless of whether they publish them voluntarily or mandatorily. Their further analysis indicates that only financial statement data is linked to share prices, while non-financial, environmental, and social information is irrelevant to value. The authors claim that this is evidence that non-financial data does not explain, to investors, any relevant issues regarding the organization’s valuation. However, it should be noted that there are opinions in the literature that the reporting obligation improves the quality of disclosures [30,31]. The empirical research results by Hoang et al. [31] show that mandatory disclosure has resulted in improved IR quality in South Africa. The increase in compliance with the IR guidelines, especially the “content elements” and “guiding principles”, is reflected in a lower level of incorrect reports.

The works of Vitolla et al. [5] and Kannenberg and Schreck [14] present evidence that IR improves sustainability performance. The findings of the Veltri and Silvestri [10] show that two-thirds of the published studies have a positive relationship between IR and market performance. This is true, regardless of whether the organizations were required to report or made voluntary disclosures and how they measured disclosures (own or standardized quality indices) or measured impacts (share price, expected cash flow, cost of equity).

IR influence studies are not only limited to the impact on the reduction of information asymmetry but also on the sustainability of the organization itself. In the study of Haywood and Boihang [26] it is noted that out of the 100 largest companies listed in JSE, only 6% in 2017 and 11% in 2018 incorporated sustainability objectives into their strategy and included them in their business model. Besides, only 2% of those surveyed companies defined a business case for adopting specific sustainability goals and priorities in their integrated report. Based on the results of a review of empirical research conducted by Veltri and Silvestri [10], the authors found evidence that the implementation of IR in the company improves the quality of management and improves corporate management control systems as a result of integrating both a holistic vision of the organization’s development and financial and non-financial key performace indicators (KPI) with a specific business model. These findings also seem to be confirmed by the study by Tlili et al. [25], which provides evidence of the positive and significant impact of integrated reporting on the value of organizational capital. These studies highlight the importance of integrated thinking and the importance of resources as inputs to the business model.

Criticism concerning the quality of disclosure mainly refers to the lack of data integrity, which was supposed to be a key IR objective factor. According to Eccles and Serafeim [32], the difficulty is to find links between the organization’s business model, its strategy, and current and projected KPIs. There are also gaps in the presentation of the disclosures materiality and the stakeholder engagement process. In particular, the quality of disclosure of information about the organization’s future intentions and business model is low [15]. The study by Janik et al. [33] shows limited intentions in the description of particular actions and KPIs at a strategic level for companies in the European Union energy sector. Empirical research by Grrcia-Sanchez et al. [34] also leads to interesting conclusions. It has shown that the scope and the form of the disclosure of the organization’s achievements can be impacted by the president’s level of power, as presidents with more power oppose the disclosure of integrated information. Their research also suggests that opposition to the disclosure of integrated information about value creation is greater for companies with significant growth opportunities, where disclosure may result in using the information by competitors. However, research presented by Kılıç and Kuzey [35] has shown that the disclosure scope is not significantly influenced by the board’s size or its structure. The authors argue that the scope of future disclosures is impacted by gender diversity and the size of the company. Simultaneously, their research did not confirm the impact on disclosures, depending on the type of sector in which the organization operates.

3. Data and Research Scenario

Our study was based on the analysis of differences in disclosures in the integrated reports. We aim to answer whether there are significant differences in the disclosures depending on the companies’ sector. We divided companies into energy and non-energy sector. For the analysis, we took the integrated reports of companies listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange for the period 2013–2018 (At the time of the study and regarding the COVID-19 pandemic, reports for 2019 were not available). In total, we analyzed 57 integrated reports covering 20 companies. The IIRC standard was declared in 74% of the reports, while almost all reports (except two) indicated that they used the GRI standard (due to the time frame, this was mainly the G4 version). About one-third of the surveyed integrated reports were available in English. Most of the reports (65%) were presented as a pdf file, 26% of the reports were in the online form, and the remaining reports were in a combined form (pdf file with web references). The reports were divided into two groups: the energy sector and the other sectors. In the energy sector, we examined seven companies, which consisted of 29 IRs. In the non-energy sector, we analyzed 13 companies that published 28 integrated reports in the considered time period. A detailed summary of the number of reports, the number of companies depending on the sector is presented in

Table 1. Number of analyzed companies and IRs.

Sector	Number of Companies	Number of IRs
energy sector
strict energy	2	7
mining	3	11
fuel	2	11
non-energy sector
electric articles	1	1
banks	2	5
construction	2	6
chemistry	1	5
insurance	1	1
stock exchanges and brokers	1	1
engineering	1	2
construction materials	2	2
cloths	1	2
IT and telecommunications	1	3

.

All of the integrated reports were analyzed for completeness according to the International IR Framework. The complete IR consists of eight areas, within which we have listed 49 features. Detailed characteristics of the particular features are presented in the Appendix A in

Table A1. Features of the report.

Organizational overview and external environment
A1	The report presents the culture, ethics, and values
A2	The report presents ownership structure
A3	The report describes operating structure (in particular, unit organization, a range of activities, rights, and responsibilities, and management systems)
A4	The report presents principal business activities and markets on which the organization operates
A5	The report identifies competition and market positioning of the unit
A6	The report identifies the position of the unit within the value chain
A7	The report presents market and competition analysis
A8	The report includes key quantitative information compared to prior periods, e.g., the number of employees, the number of countries in which the organization operates, acquired revenue
A9	The report provides information about significant factors affecting the external environment and has the direct or indirect ability on the organization to create value in the short, medium, and long term (legal aspects, commercial, social, environmental, and political context)
Governance
B1	The report presents the organization’s leadership structure, including the skills, qualifications, competence, experience, and gender of the people responsible for management
B2	The report informs about processes used to make strategic decisions, establishing the culture of the organization, its attitude to risk, mechanisms for addressing integrity and ethical issues
B3	The report indicates the activities of people responsible for corporate governance engaged in monitoring the strategic development of the organization and the strategy to risk management
B4	The report presents how an organization’s culture, ethics, and values are reflected in the use and accumulation of capitals, including its relationships with key stakeholders
B5	The report provides information on whether the organization is implementing governance practices that exceed legal requirements
B6	The report indicates the responsibility of people responsible for corporate governance, for promoting and implementing innovation
B7	The report includes information on how the employees’ remuneration and incentives are linked to the organization’s value creation in the short, medium, and long term, including their effects on the capitals.
Business model
C1	The report identifies key elements of the business model (inputs, business activities, outcomes)
C2	The report presents a simple diagram highlighting key elements of the business model(s), supported by a clear explanation of the relevance of those elements to the organization
C3	The report describes the business model logically and takes into account the specific conditions of the organization
C4	The report identifies crucial stakeholder and other dependencies (e.g., relation to raw material) and essential factors affecting the external environment
C5	The report shows the connection between the business model and information of the other integrated report elements, such as strategy, risk, opportunity, and performance (including KPIs and financial considerations, such as revenue and cost reduction)
C6	The report shows key inputs of the business model, including capitals (i.e., financial capital, manufactured, human, intellectual, natural, social, and relationship capital), which have the ability to create value in the short, medium, and long term
C7	The report reveals the business activities in the model regarding how to: differentiate in the market, generate revenue from after-sales service, innovate, adapt the business model to change, and include initiatives that contribute to the long-term success of the organization (e.g., process improvement, employee training, and relationship management)
C8	The report shows outputs of the business model, including key products and services, as well as by-products and waste that are relevant to a particular organization
C9	The report indicates both internal and external outcomes of the organization’s business activities (e.g., internal outcomes, employee morale, organizational reputation, external outcomes, i.e., customer satisfaction, contribution to the local economy through employment and tax payment, and environmental effects)
C10	The report indicates both positive and negative outcomes (resulted in a net increase or a net decrease in the capitals and creating or diminishing the value)
Risks and opportunities
D1	The report includes external and/or internal opportunities that affect the organization’s ability to create value in the short, medium, and long term, along with an indication of the aggregation level (e.g., by country, division, department, or headquarters).
D2	The report includes threats of external and/or internal nature affecting the organization’s ability to create value in the short, medium, and long term, along with information on the level of aggregation (e.g., by country, division, department, or headquarters).
D3	The report provides information on the likelihood of occurrence of circumstances that could cause a threat or opportunity and the magnitude of their potential impact on achieving objectives.
D4	The report indicates specific steps undertaken to mitigate or manage key risks and create value from key opportunities, as well as their implications for the achievement of strategic goals, strategy, policies, other objectives, and KPIs.
Strategy and resource allocation
E1	The report describes the organization’s strategy and how it affects value creation in the short, medium, and long term and how it affects capital use.
E2	The report presents how the organization has implemented or intends to implement the strategy to achieve its strategic objectives (for example, indicating resource allocation).
E3	The report presents competitive advantages related to innovation, development, use of intellectual capital, social and environmental factors.
E4	The report indicates how achievements and results will be measured in the short, medium, and long term.
Performance
F1	The report includes quantitative and qualitative indicators (KPIs) related to the achieved objectives, risks, opportunities and explains their relevance.
F2	The report presents the positive effects of realized and unrealized goals of the organization and their impact on the capitals (in qualitative and quantitative terms).
F3	The report presents the negative effects of the organization’s realized and unrealized goals and their impact on capitals (quantitative and qualitative).
F4	The report explains the state of key stakeholder relationships and how the organization responds to the legitimate needs and interests of key stakeholders.
F5	The report shows the relationship between past and present results.
F6	The report shows the relationship between current performance and future conditions.
Outlook
G1	The report informs about the organization’s challenges and uncertainties in the short term.
G2	The report informs about the organization’s challenges and uncertainties in the medium and long term.
G3	The report indicates how challenges and uncertainties will affect the organization.
G4	The report indicates the potential effects of expectations and uncertainties on the organization’s business model and future performance.
G5	The report indicates whether the organization has the resources to respond to critical situations and the potential risks that may arise.
G6	The report considers legal and other requirements, which the organization is subject, concerning the perspectives.
Basis of presentation
H1	The report presents how an organization selects relevant and necessary information to create an integrated report and identifies people responsible for it.
H2	The report indicates the process for determining the relevance of information, the reporting boundary, and how it is determined.
H3	The report explains and characterizes the key methods used to determine or assess materiality (e.g., financial reporting standards used to develop financial information, a company’s formula for evaluating customer satisfaction, or industry-developed risk assessments).

. Each of the features was evaluated on a five-step scale of the disclosed information quality. We assigned from 1 point (lack of information) to 5 points (full information)depending on the classification presented in

Table 2. Features scoring classification.

Points	Score Description
1	lack of information, the information is missing
2	limited information, the information is mentioned but is not described
3	some information, but with deficiencies, the information is described in insufficient coverage
4	information almost comprehensive, a good description of information, but the connection to others features of the report is shortage
5	full information, the presented information is complete with clear linkage to other features of the report

.

To evaluate the significance of the differences between the two sectors in terms of analyzed features, we used the U Mann Whitney test. This semi-parametric test has weak assumptions (independence of samples, measurement on an ordered scale) and can be applied for our studies. The null hypothesis assumes that both samples (energy and non-energy sectors) have the same distributions, while the alternative says that there is a shift in the location [36]. In other words, we can identify the features, which have a significant difference in the scores.

4. Results

We conducted the analysis in eight areas indicated in the IIRC guidelines: Organizational overview and external environment (A), Governance (B), Business model (C), Risks and opportunities (D), Strategy and resource allocation (E), Performance (F), Outlook (G), Basis of presentation (H) comparing the energy sector companies with the non-energy sector companies. This allowed us to determine that the reports of the energy sector companies are characterized by a higher quality of disclosures than other sectors’ reports. We obtained differences statistically significant (at a 5% significance level) in 7 out of 8 key reporting areas. At the same time, in the case of the analysis of disclosures in Performance (F), we found insignificant differences.

Table 3. Mean, standard deviation, difference with significance (Mann-Whitney test) for features of the raport for energy and non-energy sector companies.

	Feature of the Report	Energy		Non-Energy		Mean	Significance
		Mean	S.D.	Mean	S.D.	Differn.
Organizational overview and external environment
A1	culture, ethics and values	5.00	0.00	4.86	0.36	0.1430	0.036${}^{(**)}$
A2	ownership structure	4.83	0.38	4.68	0.82	0.1490	0.960 ${}^{(-)}$
A3	operating structure	5.00	0.00	4.68	0.67	0.3210	0.004${}^{(***)}$
A4	principal activities and markets	5.00	0.00	4.89	0.32	0.1070	0.073${}^{(*)}$
A5	competition and market positioning	4.48	0.83	3.25	1.14	1.2330	0.000${}^{(***)}$
A6	position within the value chain	5.00	0.00	4.68	0.67	0.3210	0.004${}^{(***)}$
A7	market and competition analysis	4.66	0.48	3.07	1.27	1.5840	0.000${}^{(***)}$
A8	key quantitative information compare to prior	4.52	0.63	4.00	1.19	0.5170	0.158 ${}^{(-)}$
A9	significant factors to create value	4.86	0.35	3.79	1.20	1.0760	0.000${}^{(***)}$
Governance
B1	organization’s leadership structure	4.72	0.59	4.25	1.18	0.4740	0.176 ${}^{(-)}$
B2	strategic decisions on culture, risk, ethics	5.00	0.00	4.61	0.50	0.3930	0.000${}^{(***)}$
B3	particular actions on strategic direction	4.97	0.19	4.21	1.07	0.7510	0.000${}^{(***)}$
B4	culture, ethics and values reflect on capitals	4.86	0.35	4.32	0.77	0.5410	0.002${}^{(***)}$
B5	governance practices exceed legal requirem.	4.97	0.19	4.04	1.37	0.9300	0.000${}^{(***)}$
B6	responsibility for promoting and innovation	2.10	0.72	1.54	0.88	0.5680	0.002${}^{(***)}$
B7	employees’ remuneration to value creation	3.38	1.47	2.07	1.44	1.3080	0.001${}^{(***)}$
Business model
C1	key elements of the business model	4.17	1.31	3.07	1.74	1.1010	0.014${}^{(**)}$
C2	simple diagram highlighting key elements	3.76	1.62	2.96	1.92	0.7940	0.114 ${}^{(-)}$
C3	logical description of particular circumstances	3.97	1.55	3.11	1.66	0.8580	0.033${}^{(**)}$
C4	critical stakeholder and others dependencies	4.93	0.26	4.54	1.00	0.3950	0.096${}^{(*)}$
C5	connection to other content elements	4.07	1.16	3.04	1.55	1.0330	0.010${}^{(***)}$
C6	key inputs on the ability to create value	4.03	1.43	2.86	1.58	1.1770	0.005${}^{(***)}$
C7	business activities within the model	4.66	0.86	4.11	1.13	0.5480	0.014${}^{(**)}$
C8	outputs of the business model	4.21	1.42	4.21	0.88	0.0000	0.156 ${}^{(-)}$
C9	internal and external outcomes of activities	4.59	1.05	4.43	0.96	0.1580	0.166 ${}^{(-)}$
C10	positive and negative outcomes	3.14	1.19	2.79	0.83	0.3520	0.091${}^{(*)}$
Risks and opportunities
D1	external and internal opportunities	3.10	0.56	3.00	1.19	0.1030	0.283 ${}^{(-)}$
D2	external and internal risks to create value	3.34	0.55	2.29	0.94	1.0590	0.000${}^{(***)}$
D3	likelihood of opportunities or risks	3.55	0.63	2.57	1.10	0.9800	0.000${}^{(***)}$
D4	managing risks or opportunities	4.17	0.71	3.14	1.11	1.0300	0.000${}^{(***)}$
Strategy and resource allocation
E1	organization strategy on creating value	4.24	0.64	3.71	0.90	0.5270	0.021${}^{(**)}$
E2	achieving strategic objectives	5.00	0.00	4.36	1.06	0.6430	0.001${}^{(***)}$
E3	organization’s competitive advantage	4.83	0.38	4.25	0.84	0.5780	0.002${}^{(***)}$
E4	measurement of target outcomes	4.10	0.62	3.18	0.95	0.9250	0.000${}^{(***)}$
Performance
F1	quantitative and qualitative indicators (KPI)	3.62	0.98	3.29	1.33	0.3350	0.269 ${}^{(-)}$
F2	positive outcomes of the objectives	3.45	0.69	3.04	0.74	0.4130	0.076${}^{(*)}$
F3	negative outcomes of the objectives	2.55	0.69	1.93	0.86	0.6230	0.009${}^{(***)}$
F4	key stakeholder relationships	4.72	0.65	4.86	0.45	-0.1330	0.451 ${}^{(-)}$
F5	linkage between past and current performance	5.00	0.00	4.79	0.69	0.2140	0.073${}^{(*)}$
F6	linkage between performance and outlook	3.00	0.96	2.79	1.40	0.2140	0.429 ${}^{(-)}$
Outlook
G1	challenges and uncertainties in short term	4.93	0.26	3.68	1.34	1.2520	0.000${}^{(***)}$
G2	challenges and uncertainties in long term	3.59	1.09	2.39	1.32	1.1930	0.001${}^{(***)}$
G3	affect of challenges and uncertainties	3.28	1.22	2.32	1.31	0.9540	0.006${}^{(***)}$
G4	outcomes and uncertainties related to model	2.83	1.07	2.18	1.28	0.6490	0.011${}^{(**)}$
G5	resources to react in critical situations and risks	4.31	0.85	2.82	1.22	1.4890	0.000${}^{(***)}$
G6	legal requirements in relation to outlook	5.00	0.00	4.21	1.13	0.7860	0.000${}^{(***)}$
Basis of presentation
H1	materials and information to create report	5.00	0.00	4.64	0.83	0.3570	0.004${}^{(***)}$
H2	report specification and reporting boundary	5.00	0.00	4.57	0.88	0.4290	0.002${}^{(***)}$
H3	identification and evaluation methods	5.00	0.00	4.57	0.96	0.4290	0.004${}^{(***)}$

S.D. means standard deviation, mean differn. is the difference between means of energy and non-energy sectors, (-) is statistically insignificant difference at level 10%, (*) is statistically insignificant difference at level 5%, (**) is statistically significant difference at level 5% and (***) statistically significant difference at level 1%. Significance below 10% are marked with bold font.

presents the results for 49 features of disclosure area (divided into eight areas) for energy and non-energy sector companies.

4.1. Organizational Overview and External Environment (A)

Information disclosure in Organizational overview and the external environment (A) area, 7 of the 9 variables show significant differences between sectors. Both the energy and the non-energy companies have mostly provided complete information about the organization’s ownership structure (A2), the principal activities and markets on which the organization operates (A4) and key quantitative information (A8) in their reports. A significant difference in the disclosures’ completeness occurred in the description of the competition and the unit’s position in the market (A5). The energy sector companies provided much more information on the market and the competition analysis (A7) and the information regarding the significant factors influencing the external environment and affecting—directly or indirectly organization’s ability to create value in the short, medium, and long term (A9). The complete information by the energy sector companies was disclosed for the following features: the culture, the ethics, and the values of the organization (A1) describing the operating structure of the business (A3) identifying the competition and the position of the unit in the market (A5), and presenting the position of the unit in the value chain (A6).

The biggest discrepancy, in the completeness of the disclosure of Organizational overview and external environment (A) area, was observed among the companies from the non-energic sectors. This is particularly evident in the market and competition analysis variable (A7). The results of the disclosures indicate that some sectors describe this area extremely precisely, others almost negligibly. We concluded, that it depends mostly on the specificity of the sector. We found the most accurate information in the telecommunication sector’s reports and stock exchanges as well as in the brokerage houses sector due to the small number of entities on the stock market. At the end of 2018, 85 companies operated on the Polish telecommunications market, of which the four largest operators had a 95.2% market share in terms of several users. The sector of the stock exchange and brokerage houses, described in the Warsaw Stock Exchange integrated report, is presented very precisely.

The general and industrial construction sector and civil engineering sector presented a lack of information or very little information. These industries are characterized by a vast number of entities operating on the market, and thus the serious difficulty of detailed analysis of direct and indirect competition.

4.2. Governance (B)

The analysis of detailed disclosures for seven evaluated variables in the Governance area (B) revealed that, the only variable does not show significant differences between sectors. Most energy and non-energy companies provided full information regarding the organization’s leadership structure and the competencies, experience, and qualifications of those responsible for management (B1). In most reports, this information was included in the report’s content, but there were also examples where the companies provided a reference to their website with detailed information published there. The only variable in this area, classified as comprehensive, concerns the strategic decision-making processes, building an organizational culture, the attitude to take risks, the integrity, and the ethics (B2). We noted that the energy companies indicated significantly more information than companies in the other sectors for the following three variables: the actions taken by persons responsible for the corporate governance to monitor the strategic development of the organization and the approach to the risk management (B3); how the culture, the ethics, and the values of the organization are reflected in the use and the accumulation of the capital, including the relations with key stakeholders (B4); and whether the organization implements management actions that exceed legal requirements (B5). The last of these variables deserves a special attention. Based on the analyzed reports, it can be concluded that energy sector companies have a significantly level of social responsibility. Their activities go significantly beyond their legal requirements.

The companies pay a lot of attention to the sponsorship, the volunteering, protection of the cultural heritage. For example, KGHM Polska Miedź S.A. supports projects and initiatives aimed at the technical, environmental, and social revitalization of the post-industrial areas being decommissioned and the other vital areas available for the natural compensation. Since 2016, KGHM Polska Miedź S.A., along with several other major Polish enterprises from the key sectors of the economy, has been the Polish National Foundation founder. Another great example are the pursuits of LW Bogdanka, such as: organization of courses, pieces of training, scholarship funds, support for many organizations, implementation of additional solutions supporting work in the mine: air cooling, automation of processes so that only the equipment has access to the most dangerous places.

Although significant differences in the completeness of disclosures of the last two variables (B6, B7), in this area’s information’s overall quality was shallow. None of the companies indicated complete information, or even comprehensive information, on the responsibility of the corporate governance for promoting and implementing innovation (B6). The average value for the energy sector companies was 2.1 and 1.54 for the non-energy sectors. The low level of disclosure of the last variable concerning the relationship between the way employees are remunerated and incentivized, and the creation of company’s value in the short, medium, and long term(B7) appear for all sectors.

Among the companies in the energy sector, there was a gap between the results due to providing complete information for some companies and a lack of the low level disclosure for others. A large value of the standard deviation indicated this. Full disclosure of information was found only in four companies; 3 of them are the energy companies with the State Treasury shareholding.

4.3. Business Model (C)

The third area where is a significant difference in disclosures’ completeness is the Business model (C). Once again, energy companies have shown significantly more information in the integrated reports. An interesting finding is that, the high standard deviation in the evaluated features of the reports, which is equal to 0.95715 for the energy sector and 0.9829 for other sectors. 6 out of 10 variables in this area show a significant disclosure difference. The energy sector has, in most cases, comprehensively described the key elements of the business model (C1). We observed that only Lubelski Węgiel Bogdanka did not improve the quality of its reporting in this area. In the first years, companies from the other sectors showed the low quality of the disclosures, but the published information became complete with time. In the non-energy companies, the quality of the information also improved over time, but not as much as it did in the energy sector.

The next two variables, i.e., presentation of a simple schema describing the key elements of the business model(s) with a clear explanation of the importance of these elements for the organization (C2) and description of the business model(s) in a logical way while taking into account that the specific conditions of the organization (C3) are dependent, so their results should be considered together. Only one company from the energy industry (KGHM) did not present a complete or almost complete business model (C2) in the last year of the report, i.e., 2018. Companies that have a business model shame (C2) in most cases have described it fully or sufficiently (C3).

We have evaluated the following three variables as the highest in this area for all of the industries: the report identifies key stakeholders and the other dependencies (e.g., dependence on raw materials), as well as important factors affecting the external environment (C4), the report reveals business activities in the model concerning the approach: to stand out in the market, generate revenues from the after-sales service, introduce innovations, adapt the business model to changes and take into account initiatives contributing to the long-term success of the organization (C7) and the internal and the external consequences of the organization’s business activities (internal results are, e.g., employee morale, the organization’s reputation; external influences are the benefits customers receive from products, contribution to the local economy through employment and taxes, and the environmental impact) (C9). Most companies in the energy sector showed full disclosure, and in the non-energy sector, the information was, in most cases, comprehensive.

Statistically significant (and more complete for the energy industry) is also information on the relationship between the business model and information contained in the other elements of the IRs, such as: strategy, risk, opportunities, and performance, (C5), and the key business model inputs including the capital, i.e., financial capital, generated capital, human capital, intellectual capital, natural capital, social and relational capital with a significant impact on the ability to create value in the short, medium and long term (C6). It should be noted that in 2018 all companies in the energy sector showed full or sufficient disclosures. Strong insignificance occurred in only one criterion concerning disclosure of business model outputs covering the main products and services and by-products as well as waste relevant to the organization (C8). In this case, the energy and the non-energy industries achieved the same—high score.

The lowest score in the Business Model area (C) was for disclosing both positive and negative business results, causing a net increase/decrease in the capital and thus increasing/decreasing the value of the organization (C10). Both the energy and the non-energy industries had substantial disclosure problems in this area. Only two companies in the energy sector and one in the non-energy sector has disclosed complete information. In the company reports, we often found information on positive and negative results without specifying their impact on the capital itself.

4.4. Risk and Opportunities (D)

The next assessed area was Risk and opportunities (D). In this case, the difference in disclosures’ quality turned out to be insignificant for 1 out of 4 analyzed variables. It concerned the report’s presentation of the opportunities affecting the organization’s ability to create value in the short, medium, and long term (D1). In both analyzed sectors, the quality of the disclosures was equally low. Companies often indicate opportunities, but they do not present what impact they will have on the organization in the short, medium, and long term. Also, IRs do not consider the scale of the impact of the presented phenomena on the organization’s operations, including, e.g., country, branch, department. Among the companies from the energy sector, we have not found full information disclosed in any type of report in this field.

A similar situation concerning the quality of the disclosures occurred in the external and/or internal threats variable that affect an organization’s ability to create value in the short, medium, and long term, together with an aggregation indication level (e.g., by country, branch, department or headquarters) (D2). The quality of the disclosures for both industries was low (the energy sector average was 3.34, for the non-energy sector was 2.29), and the difference was significant. None of the companies publishing IR provided complete data on this information.

It should also be noted that companies, in most cases, informed about the probability of circumstances that could cause a chance, while rarely informed about threats and the magnitude of their possible impact on the achievement of the objectives (D3). We assessed the overall result of the disclosures in this respect as low, but also, in this case, the energy sector performed much better. Out of 22 reports in which we assessed the disclosures as comprehensive, 73% were concerned with the energy sector.

The last variable in this area—(D4), we scored highest for the energy sector concerning the other variables. It concerns the presentation of the specific steps taken by organizations to mitigate or manage the key risks and to create the value based on the key opportunities and the consequences for the achievement of strategic goals, strategies, policies, other objectives, and KPIs. It should be emphasized that all of the energy companies have, in most cases, disclosed comprehensive information, while among the remaining industries, only half of the reports.

4.5. Strategy and Resource Allocation (E)

In the Strategy and resource allocation (E) area, there were significant differences in the quality of the disclosures between industries in all of the 4 variables. IRs from the energy sector companies showed higher completeness. For the variable relating to the presentation of how the organization has implemented or intends to implement the strategy in order to achieve its strategic objectives (E2), we assessed the completeness for the power industry as comprehensive. The non-energy industry also showed high completeness, but not exhaustive.

The highest difference in scores between sectors was averaged 0.925 for describing how to measure achievements and results in the short, medium, and long term (E4). In the energy sector, we found 85% of the reports from companies that disclosed information fully or sufficiently. In the non-energy sector, less than half of the organizations met this requirement. We also found the high quality of the disclosures in the variable concerning the presentation by an organization of its competitive advantage related to the innovation, the development, the intellectual capital, the social and environmental factors (E3). Almost all companies’ reports from the energy sector contained full information (83% of reports), while the data was almost exhaustive for the other sectors (27% of reports). The non-energy sectors were slightly worse (by average 0.578 ), but we did not detect any lack of information in any report.

4.6. Performance (F)

Performance area (F) is the only field where we have not rejected the null regarding the significant difference between sectors in the overall assessment. However, the results of this area cannot remain without our comment. We have assessed the disclosures of quantitative and qualitative indicators (KPIs) related to the achieved objectives, risks, opportunities, and the explanation of their significance (F1) as low for both sectors. Energy and non-energy sectors had reasonably well developed quantitative indicators and weak (or no) qualitative indicators. We have also very rarely found any links between the indicators and the objectives, the risks, and the opportunities achieved. We found comprehensive disclosures only in the 3 companies from the non-energy sectors.

A further low quality of disclosures occurred in the variable related to the positive effects of realized and unrealized organization goals and their impact on the capital in quantitative and qualitative terms (F2). Here, the energy companies provided higher performance (there was a significant difference between the industries). Only one company from the energy sector presented a full disclosures. Most of the companies in both sectors indicated positive effects of the achieved goals, but not in the quantity or quality terms.

The lowest ratings for this area concerned presenting the negative effects of the realized and unrealized organization goals and their impact on the capital (F3). The difference is statistically significant, but both sectors showed the low quality of the disclosures. The average for the energy sector was 2.55 and for the non-energy sector 1.93. None of the companies showed complete information, and only one energy company (Tauron) indicated comprehensive information in most of the cases. The companies stated some of the information, e.g., reported that the target was not reached, but without showing the impact on the capitals in the quantitative or qualitative terms.

We observed insignificant differences in the next three examined features. The first one, concerning the company’s descriptions of the relationships with the key stakeholders and how to respond to the legitimate needs and interests of the key stakeholders (F4), is the only variable that we rated better for the non-energy sector (mean score of 4.86) than for the energy sector (mean score of 4.72) in the entire study. All of the energy companies presented a full relation between past and present results (F5), while 11 out of 13 in the non-energy sector. A much less comprehensive situation concerning the quality of the disclosures occurred for presenting the relationship between current and future performance (F6). For example, in the energy sector, full disclosures were found in one company (Tauron) and two companies in the non-energy sectors (mBank, Grupa Azoty).

4.7. Outlook (G)

Outlook (G) is an area where all variables show significant differences between sectors. The reports of the energy companies in the entire area show significantly more complete disclosures than the non-energy companies. The difference between the averages is the highest between all of the examined areas and is 1.054. Two categories: the report presents information about the organization’s challenges and the uncertainties in the short term (G1), and the report presents information about the resources to respond to critical situations and potential risks that may arise (G5), show very high completeness in the energy sector with the averages of 4.93 and 4.31 respectively, while in the non-energy sector the quality of disclosures is surprisingly low (3.68 for G1 and 2.82 for G5). There is a high standard deviation in the non-energy sector in both of these features, indicating a large discrepancy among the results.

It is worth highlighting that all of the energy companies have disclosed full information on legal requirements and the other regulations concerning the outlook (G6). The remaining 3 out of 6 variables were not rated too high for both energy and non-energy sectors. Moderately the low-quality disclosures occurred in communicating the organization’s challenges and uncertainties in the medium and long term (G2) as well as in indicating how these challenges and uncertainties will affect the organization (G3). The information was much more complete in the energy sector than in the non-energy sector, but still, its level was not satisfactory.

We scored the lowest points to indicate potential effects of the expectations and the uncertainties concerning the organization’s business model and its future performance (G4). Only three energy and four non-energy companies disclosed comprehensive or sufficient information, while the others, in most cases, disclosed little or no information.

4.8. Basis of Presentation (H)

The last evaluated area was the Basis of presentation (H). Energy companies have fully described the IIRC guidelines’ requirements in this area in all of the reports with an average of 5.0. We also assessed the non-energy companies highly (above 4.5 for all variables), but this occurred with a statistically significant difference in the quality of the disclosures between industries.

5. Discussion

Our research allowed us to determine the quality level of the integrated reporting and to identify gaps in companies’ disclosure of information coming from different sectors. It turned out that the least problems are encountered by companies—regardless of the industry in which they operate—in meeting the requirements defined in the standard as “Organizational overview and external environment” and “Basis of presentation”. The quality of the disclosures in terms of the organization’s structure, its values, and operating principles is not a major problem for companies. Some organizations—especially those from the non-energy market—do not sufficiently present the market and the competition analysis.

Importantly, we found that the companies have no problems in identifying their stakeholders. Research by Beske et al. [37] highlight the low level of explanation of methods for identifying stakeholders and adjusting report content to meet stakeholder needs. The business model’s presentation and management of its change have also been improved, and the disclosure of the internal and the external consequences of the organization’s business activities. Although in the research carried out in [15], the authors raise the low quality of the information in this area. In our opinion, the reports’ weakness is rather not the presentation of the business model itself, but its links with strategy, risks, opportunities, and performance, as pointed out by Eccles and Serafeim [32]. However, it should be emphasized that the energy companies present these connections much better. Also, the energy sector is doing better in presenting capital as an input to the business model. These observations make us think whether the differences in the quality of the disclosures in this respect results only from the relative repeatability of the business models functioning on the energy market or whether the quality of disclosures has some other reasons.

The fewest disclosures are in the “Risks and opportunities” and “Outlook” areas. We noted that organizations present more information concerning the management of risks and opportunities process itself than related to specific circumstances that affect or affect their operations shortly. The unwillingness to disclose this information may be due to the fear of competition’s impact on the company’s market position [38]. This is particularly reflected in relation to opportunities that the companies apparently do not want to disclose. The risks are better defined in the energy sector companies (although they concern generally known macro and microeconomic factors influencing activity in this sector). In contrast, in the group of non-energy companies, the disclosures are low (2.29). Only in a few IRs, we did find comprehensive information.

The analyzed organizations usually present the company’s strategic development directions comprehensively, but specific goals, indicators, and expected target level are much weaker. As a result, it impacts the presentation of the prospects for action and is confirmed by the low rating of the disclosures in the Outlook area. Presentation of quantitative and qualitative indicators (KPIs) is a weakness of the reports. A similar problem was noted by Talbon and Boiral [39] for analyzing non-financial reports (the quality of climate information) of 21 companies in the energy sector. The high inconsistency of disclosures with GRI standards was noted. Although companies have no problems illustrating the relationship between past and present performance, they rarely relate them to future goals, risks, and opportunities. In particular, organizations have poorly developed qualitative indicators, limiting their ability to fully present the results of realized and unrealized organization’s goals and their impact on the capital. Additionally, we noted that companies avoid presenting negative results (scores between 2.55 and 1.93). Generally, the perspectives of the organization’s functioning in different contexts—strategic, competitive, resource, and performance—are much less presented than the other requirements. In this respect, a positive exception occurs in presenting the impact of legal requirements on the organization’s functioning prospects. Especially in energy companies, these issues are described in great detail, although much better in a shorter perspective (4.93) than in a longer perspective (3.59).

In the whole study, the lowest level of the disclosures concerns two requirements deriving from the IIRC concept. Companies find it difficult to report the responsibility of management for promoting and enabling innovation. While some companies have indicated departments or responsible persons in their reports, none of the IRs show how the supervisors are implementing their responsibility in this area. Most reports contained little or no information concerning the subject.

Our attention was also drawn to the approach in publishing information on the impact of employee remuneration on its value. We noted that this information is omitted in private companies. In contrast, companies with Treasury shareholding are obliged to provide this information, although not all of them show the links between these parameters and the creation of the company’s value.

A positive surprise in the energy sector companies’ case is the reporting of activities exceeding the legal requirements. The reports emphasize the importance of environmental responsibility, reduce environmental nuisance, and implement environmentally friendly technologies. The companies also point out many initiatives aimed at society through social programs, sport, culture and art, as well as in sponsorship.

We also found that the examined organizations present information regarding comparisons of the current and the historical results in great detail but almost completely ignore the relationship between current results and business perspectives. In general, companies have difficulties forecasting activities and demonstrating their results in the short, medium, and long term. Short-term forecasts are most often presented, and very rarely medium and long-term ones. This state of affairs may be related to the uncertainty of long-term forecasting. It should also be noted that the problem in case of most organizations was presentation of the negative effects of realized and unrealized goals of the organization and their impact on the capital in the quantitative and qualitative terms. The reason for this may be, on one hand, reluctance to disclose negative results for fear of the potential reaction of the financial markets; on the other hand, insufficient skills in forecasting the impact of the processes on the financial results due to short experience of the companies in preparing integrated reports. While most companies have reported results, they have not described what were, are, or will be their effects on the company’s current and future financial performance, as highlighted by Kılıç and Kuzey [35]. Therefore, in many cases, it is not yet integrated thinking, based on the value spiral—a mechanism for increasing the organization’s value by building relationships with stakeholders based on value interactions that result in its inflow and enable continuous improvement, maturity, and sustainable development [40]. This position also seems to confirm the organization’s problems with building a loop of relations between the company’s capital and creating the organization’s value in the long term. Therefore, companies have difficulties integrating non-financial and financial information, which is also pointed out by Bek-Gaik and Surowiec [15] and Akhter and Ishihara [41]. The integrated report framework indicates that integrated thinking should consider connections and interdependencies, but we did not find them in most IRs.

It is worth noting that the reports were shortened during the examined period (reduced number of pages), but this did not affect their quality. The results presented by Herbert and Graham [42] points that there is a substantial change in integration level of disclosures concerning sustain development, but without substantial change in the adoption of KPIs and disclosure balance. On the contrary, the amount of information increased. In many cases, instead of extensive content, there are short pieces of information and interactive references to the companies’ websites, which contain exhaustive data.

6. Conclusions

Several years of functioning of the Integrated Reporting Framework developed by the IIRC in the business environment lead to the conclusion that the introduction of the standards has significantly improved the quality of disclosures. The research showed that companies can establish and communicate the process of selecting the information relevant and necessary to create an integrated report. However, not all of IIRC’s assumptions have been effectively implemented. We noted significant differences in 7 out of 8 key reporting areas, which does not allow us to reject the first hypothesis (H1). The only area where there were no significant differences in assessment is the performance area. Our study identified those requirements for which the level of disclosures: full or very low for all of the business units, is characteristic for the organization’s sector.

Our research has shown that companies—regardless of the sector—are very good at presenting information that was already required to be disclosed in other types of reports. Therefore, the problem is not the description of corporate governance in terms of structure and ownership and organizational links or the presentation of the details of an entity’s organization. It can also be noted that full disclosures relate to the information generally available to stakeholders in other sources, such as the company’s website, the National Court Register, or official journals. This includes, for example, the leadership structure of the organization, the competencies of those responsible for the management, or the legal requirements to which the organization is subordinate.

Comparing the IRs of the energy and the non-energy sector companies allowed us to notice differences in the quality of the disclosures in these selected research groups. Since the guidelines are the same, in our opinion, the lack of some information disclosure may not be the result of misunderstanding or underestimation. Still, it may be related to the sector’s specifics or competitors’ practices regarding disclosure level. It is not worth publishing more information than one’s competitors, as this may affect its stakeholders’ perception as more transparent, so it may indirectly impact improving the disclosures across the sector.

The conducted analyses have established that the organization’s sector is relevant to the disclosures’ scope and details. This claim was also confirmed by previous research in South Africa [16]. The energy sector companies received the maximum rating for full disclosures in all of the reports in 11 out of 49 evaluated variables. Companies from the non-energy sector did not achieve such a score in any of the area. Therefore, the quality of the integrated energy sector reports is much higher than that of non-energy sector reports, which confirms our second hypothesis (H2).

The fundamental differences between the sectors occur in the presentation of the external environment. This conclusion results from comparing disclosures as well as providing a broader assessment of the differences occurring in the non-energy sector companies. The energy companies, operating on the regulated market, surrounded by large market players, present the context of their further and closer environment much more comprehensively. For example, companies operating in highly competitive markets (such as the construction industry) present more general information. A strong point of the reports of the energy companies is also the disclosure of strategic decision-making processes as well as it takes on the issues of ethics. The energy companies present much broadly the specific actions taken to manage the key risks and to create value based on identified opportunities and their consequences for the implementation of strategic objectives and KPIs. Therefore, it is important to underline that the energy sector IRs include much more information containing specific quantitative and qualitative indicators. It is confirmed by prior studies that environmentally sensitive companies reveal more extensive data [4,43,44].

The new reporting approach required the organization to focus on the essence of its business model. It can be unambiguously stated that this idea was reflected in the integrated reports of the analyzed companies. However, the presentation of the links among the business model and the strategy, risks, opportunities, and performance of the organization is not as discernible as the IIRC framework constitutes.

The companies’ major challenges were: presentation of the management’s responsibility for promoting and implementing innovation, and linking the way employees are remunerated and rewarded with the creation of company value in the short, medium, and long term. It seems that there is a need to clarify the IR guidelines to make them more understandable.

It can be assumed that several trends described in our study may be universal because they are also noticeable in other countries. The quality of disclosures improves over time, and the sector also impacts the quality of disclosures. The strengths and weaknesses of the reports are probably similar. In particular, there may similarly be missing links between business model and strategy, KPIs, and forward-looking actions. The previous studies we have found in the literature have focused on a higher level of generality and have dealt with areas rather than detailed characteristics as in our study. Therefore, to confirm the possibility of extrapolation results, it would be necessary to apply a similar detailed study for integrated reports of companies from other countries, which would require international involvement of researchers, mainly due to the publication of reports in their native languages.

Our study concerning the differences in disclosures of IRs at energy and non-energy companies have some limitations. Firstly, we verified IRs only from companies in Poland and listed on Warsaw Stock Exchange. We realize that not only companies listed in the polish stock exchange publish Integrated Reports in Poland. Some companies, which are not obliged to make IRs, use this kind of report as a communication channel with their stakeholders. In some cases, those reports are not even named integrated, making finding the reports more difficult, especially when there is no data base to collect such information. Comparison of quality of disclosures for companies that are obliged to publish IRs with others would be interesting research. Also, taking into account other sectors would fulfill the knowledge gap, as well as reports from other countries. It would be valuable to validate if the experience in publishing the reports leads to a higher quality of the reports, i.e., changing the quality over time. It would be interesting to evaluate the integrity, coherence, and linkage between financial and non-financial data regarding disclosure quality.