Investigation of Integrated Reporting As a New Approach of Corporate Reporting

When the recent history of financial, social, environmental and ethical reporting is examined, the idea that increasing expectations of shareholders and stakeholders on transparency and accountability can be met by a single report has great importance. Therefore, the integrated reporting issue after the sustainability reports is on the agenda. When we look at the development of integrated reporting and Corporate Reporting (CR), since integrated reporting has complicated theoretical background, organizations have difficulties to understand whether their report is an integrated one. So in this study we try to reveal basic principles, theoretical background and development process of integrated reporting. We look at globally the development of integrated reporting between the years 1999-2015 on Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) database and prepared visual tables showing the development of Integrated Reporting (IR) aiming to create positive contribute to CR literature. In the present study; we determine that in 2012 integrated reporting is made the most, large businesses prefer integrated reporting the most, integrated reporting is made in European region the most, and financial services sector is the sector publishing integrated report the most.