Abstract
Over the last two decades, significant events have led to some of the largest business failures
ever seen in the financial sector, such as Enron and WorldCom (Constancio 2011; Deegan
2009; Luez & Wysocki 2008). These business failures have led to financial reporting no longer
being viewed from a financial perspective alone, but also from a non-financial perspective.
King Code III had a significant impact on the reporting requirements of the Johannesburg
Securities Exchange (JSE) and the manner in which directors’ display responsibility,
accountability, and corporate governance in business. Companies are required to present
and prepare reports incorporating both financial and non-financial information. The value of a
business no longer lies purely in the financial information, but also in non-financial information.
In the present study, a detailed content analysis study was conducted to evaluate the annual
integrated reports (IRs) of the top 40 listed companies for the period 1 June 2011 to 31 July
2012. Each company was compared to the Integrated Reporting Prototype Framework (IRPF)
developed from the International Integrated Reporting Committee (IIRC). Disclosure practices
were presented by each entity within their annual IR; these were investigated and compared
to the recommendations as set out in the IRPF. Following the detailed content analysis, some
significant findings and conclusions were noted; most notably was the fact that the majority of
companies managed to present annual IRs despite not having any formalised examples or
documents to aid in the preparation and presentation of these. A variety of companies
managed to achieve most of the recommendations as set out by the IRPF. This is a significant
contribution to the knowledge base of integrated reporting, as limited research has been
conducted to analyse the top 40 listed companies’ IRs in South Africa by making use of the
IRPF.
M.Com.