Integrated reporting practices and the perspectives of professional accountants in Nigeria

Many studies have advocated the adoption of integrated reporting which embodies both financial and non-financial information in order to address this shortcoming of general purpose financial statements. In the Integrated Reporting Framework it issued in 2013, the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) provided 6 capitals, 7 Guiding Principles and 8 Content Elements (CEs) or micro-reports which underlie integrated reporting practices and, as a collective, can satisfy the information needs of stakeholders of listed companies in Nigeria.This study set out to ascertain the perspectives of Professional accountants (PAs) in Nigeria on integrated reporting practices because, like their peers in other jurisdictions, they play diverse roles in the financial reporting chain as standard setters, preparers, users, audit and assurance providers, financial advisors, reporting accountants and regulators. This study adopted a survey research design. Copies of questionnaire were administered to 400 respondents selected from a population of 82,353 PAs in Nigeria in 2018 using the Taro Yamane formula. 378 copies were retrieved giving a response rate of 95%.Likert Scale was used to rank responses to assertions of CEs which were analysed using descriptive statistics. The study found thatthe thrusts of integrated reporting practices were adequately captured by the content elements and their respective assertions. It also revealed that the adoption of integrated reporting practices will lead to value creation and satisfy capital providers’ information needs.The study showed that the majority of respondents (over 85% on average) agreed that all the CEs should form the bulwark of Integrated Report as proposed by the IIRC.The study concluded that the selective use of CEs will vitiate the objectives of integrated reporting practices. The study therefore recommended that the Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria should liaise with parliament and other regulatory agencies to amend the companies’ law such that integrated reporting can be made the mandatory corporate reporting framework in Nigeria.