Constructs for Assessing Integrated Reports-Testing the Predictive Validity of a Taxonomy for Organization Size, Industry, and Performance

The lack of an agreed valid measurement of integrated reporting (<IR>) among organizations poses a constant problem to empirical researchers. Lueg and Lueg proposed an <IR> score that rates and categorizes reports according to their compliance with the principles of <IR>. This study tested and validated their proposed coding catalogue, constructs, and taxonomy using capital market data and multivariate statistics. These findings suggested that this <IR> score and the corresponding taxonomy for classifying reports has a high predictive validity and can be used by future researchers to measure <IR>. In particular, this <IR> score confirmed that integrated thinking reports tend to be published by large organizations in controversial industries with an above-average performance (Adj. R2 = 42.2%). The findings also suggested that the construct form of the integrated report contributes more explanatory power than the construct content. In this regard, the results indicated that only full implementers of <IR> show associations with performance, unlike organizations that partially comply with the <IR> principles.