Discovering the connectivity of information in Integrating Reporting: an exploratory data analysis

In the landscape of corporate reporting, the Integrated Report () has been heavily debated over the last few years, focusing mainly on its declared aim to provide a more holistic and “integrated” representation of the organization and the related capacity to create value over time. To pursue this aim, specifically builds on a guiding principle called “connectivity of information,” which certainly plays a pivotal role in drafting an integrated report, despite the difficulties related to its operationalization. Starting from these considerations and building on the debate about the concept of integration, this study aims to explore how the principle of connectivity is operationalized in Integrated Reporting. To this aim, the study presents an exploratory analysis conducted on a sample of Integrated Reports extracted from the IIRC Integrated Reporting Examples Database by adopting two research methods, Principal Component Analysis and Text Mining.