Cristiana Bernardi

• PhD in Business Administration, Roma TRE University - MSc in Financial Markets and Institutions, Tor Vergata University (Rome)
• Senior Lecturer in Accounting and Financial Management at The Open University

This paper reviews the field of integrated reporting ( ) to develop insights into how research is developing, offer a critique of the research to date, and outline future research opportunities. We find that most published research presents normative arguments for and there is little research examining practice. Thus, we call for more research that...

The International Integrated Reporting Council advocates that integrated reporting (IR) should become the worldwide norm for corporate reporting aimed at serving the needs of investors. Nonetheless, only in South Africa has IR been mandated. We study the impact of the reporting regime change in South Africa on analyst forecast accuracy over the per...

Motivated by the requirements of the UK Companies Act 2006 for a Strategic Report introduced in late 2013, and the subsequent Directive 2014/95/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council, we investigate the relationship between the levels of disclosures on environmental and social activities and performance (analyst following) and subsequent...

Demand for chocolate is at an all-time high. However, producing chocolate comes with some sticky social, environmental and economic problems. This paper focuses on the issues of child labour, forced child labour and unsustainable farming practice within the chocolate industry, and specifically on the discourse about Nestlé’s Ivory Coast cocoa suppl...

Sustainability, the environment, corporate accountability, social justice, integration – these are the buzzwords of our century. This book takes readers on a journey through the landscape of standard-setting giants and corporate reporting paradigms through the eyes of two companies that have taken very different paths toward integrated thinking. Bo...

Purpose Sustainability in the cocoa industry is a wicked problem – a grand challenge that the world, including accountants, must tackle. Issues such as child labour, poverty and environmental degradation continue to plague the cocoa supply chain. However, current accounting and reporting techniques fail to address these challenges effectively. This...

Purpose This study investigates whether Islamic banks in the UK fulfil their broader function of promoting social justice and equality, a notion that scholars and Muslims believe they should be prioritised over profit-making. Design/methodology/approach Adopting a sociocultural lens, we employ Bourdieu’s concepts of social class and symbolic capit...

The coronavirus might make Easter celebrations a little subdued this year, but that doesn’t mean going without chocolate eggs. In fact, South Australia’s chief public health officer Nicola Spurrier reportedly said people should partake in the Easter treats “to cheer ourselves up … I’ve certainly got a good supply of chocolate eggs already”. But be...

Business is changing. And it’s changing fast. The challenges we face in contemporary society are unprecedented and daunting—globalization, climate change, poverty, social inequality, and corruption… to name a few. However, with crisis comes courage, and the voice of the people is growing louder: organisations need to step up and take responsibility...

Given that is a relatively recent phenomenon, insights are needed to understand how it works in practice and, as a consequence, to ascertain if it could eventually become the corporate reporting norm as advocated by the IIRC. Adams (2015, p. 23) encourages “academics to engage with the [ ] process and to contribute to the development of new forms o...

To better understand where stands today, it is helpful to trace its origins: how it has developed in different jurisdictions, and how it is currently being promoted. The IIRC’s strategy was supposed to culminate in what it termed a ‘Breakthrough Phase’ in 2017. But, as Dumay et al. (2017) point out, has not yet broken through any major markets beyo...

Like its predecessor, intellectual capital, was initially conceived by practitioners with academics following closely behind in either support or opposition. This chapter outlines the two sides of the debate and, through this analysis, also explores the stages of research as well as the relationship between practitioners and academics. Commonly, fi...

This chapter provides insights into the journey taken by Eni S.p.A., a multinational company operating in the oil and gas industry. Eni’s claim of commitment to sustainability is proven by achievements and awards and, more importantly, its history. This case study, which is based on data and information gathered from different sources, including in...

The two cases presented in this book are diametrically opposed, and each raises different insights for practice. However, both offer some lessons for furthering the Framework. They also offer scope to learn some lessons about corporate disclosure. These lessons outline how works differently in practice. Thus, these two cases help to conceptualise h...

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the extent to which the practice of integrated reporting (IR) in organisations can be a vehicle for furthering and sustaining the practice of accounting for intellectual capital (IC). It introduces the eight papers forming this Journal’s special issue on “Extending Intellectual Capital through Integr...

Integrated reporting ( ) is currently a hot topic for academic research because of the practical challenges businesses encounter when implementing it. Motivated by the results from the IIRC’s call for feedback on the International Framework ( ) implementation, this chapter focuses on the challenges of integrated thinking and examines the extant aca...

Integrated Reporting ( ) is currently a hot topic for academic research because of the practical challenges businesses encounter when implementing it. Motivated by the results from the International Integrated Reporting Council's (IIRC) call for feedback on the International Framework ( ) implementation, this chapter focuses on the challenges of in...

Purpose This paper is motivated by the International Integrated Reporting Council’s (IIRC) call for feedback from all stakeholders with knowledge of the International Integrated Reporting Framework , and specifically of the enablers, incentives and barriers to its implementation. The paper synthesises insights from contemporary accounting research...

Motivated by the requirements of the UK Companies Act 2006 and the subsequent Directive 2014/95/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council, we investigate the relationship between environmental and social disclosures (analyst following) and analyst following (environmental and social disclosures). We do so to investigate the value relevance o...

This study concerns a global player company operating within the Aerospace and Defence field which has first developed and then deployed a managerial integrated reporting, which attempts to combine traditional financial metrics with Intellectual Capital (IC) and Sustainability performance indicators. The qualitative research approach underlying our...