Sustainability Reporting in Lithuania: The Perspective of Integrated Reporting

Abstract

The newest tendencies in the European Union underline the trend toward the regulation of nonfinancial reporting of the largest companies and groups by adopting Directive 2014/95/EU on the mandatory disclosure of nonfinancial and diversity information. Integrated reporting may offer a promising new way of discovering new opportunities of nonfinancial reporting for companies. The move toward integrated reporting has already triggered research in various dimensions, although most published research presents normative arguments, and there is little research examining integrated reporting practices. As institutional regulation will enter into force from January 2017, this study aims to investigate the current state of nonfinancial reporting of listed Lithuanian companies according to the integrated reporting framework. Research results show that companies already include nonfinancial information in their annual reports in different sectors. During the economic crisis (2008–2009) integrated capital information accounted for an average of 20.47% of corporate annual reports, while in the postcrisis period (2013–2014), it constituted an average of 16.08%. Financial capital and human capital are the most prevalent types of disclosed capital. Overall, disclosure levels of capital, except for natural capital, are quite similar in both periods. This research contributes to the existing literature by providing empirical evidence of integrated reporting in Lithuania by providing insights upon which future research and practices can be built.