Research Topic

The research topic of the three papers is about integrated reporting (IR) and the extent, accuracy
and reliability to which it is made available to stakeholders. Two of the papers 1 have their titles
clearly elucidating the aspect of sustainability while the other paper2 does not clearly bring out the
aspect of sustainability in the title. Studying environment disclosure practices alone does not
exhibit the holistic perspective of sustainability right from the title. This is, however, captured
accordingly within the paper.

Research Problem

Reporting both financial and non-financial aspects of business operations is very paramount as a
sustainability frameworks. IR aids in making business operational decisions and policies for the
good of all the stakeholders. With all the three papers agreeing that most companies present
integrated reports which are compromised, paper 2 and 3 emphasizes more on the environmental
aspect as non-financial aspect. It is expected that business sustainability is holistic and therefore
the papers should account for all factors and processes within and around the business. In
identifying the research problem, the paper should have covered the organizations’ non-financial
aspects like the workers welfare and human rights, social and environmental image. This three
items of non-financial reporting are referred to as Environmental, Social and Governance
information (ESG) (AccessInfo, 2018). In addition, the EU Directive 2014/95/EU also add anti-
corruption and bribery as other item that should be disclosed. The authors of the three papers,
therefore, should have included all this aspects and give a holistic problem statement (EU, 2014).

Research Goals

The authors of the first paper seeks to establish whether the sustainability reports meets the social,
economic and environmental requirements of the respective stakeholders. This defines a better
objective. The author of the second paper only emphasizes on the providing better information as
opposed to disclosing more information on business operations. However, it does not indicate the

1
Analysis of sustainability reporting about its sufficiency and usefulness to different types of
externalities and An investigation of stakeholders’ information needs in relation to integrated
reporting
2
A study on Environmental disclosures Practices and stakeholders’ engagement in Bangladesh.
level of this ‘better information.’ Better information is relative depending on to whom the
information is disclosed and the objective of the information. Among the stakeholders, there are
those who can safeguard the reputation of the organization at the expense of other elements like
the safety of workers and the environment. Others can receive the report and offer constructive
criticism without side lining to any direction. Of interest, however, is to establish whether
organizations discloses all the information regarding their operations. Focusing on environmental
disclosure of selected cement manufactures in Bangladesh is more specific aim which is not
reflected in the first two papers. This is true because the author of the paper (A study on
Environmental disclosures Practices and stakeholders’ engagement in Bangladesh) singles out that
the study is aimed at establishing the carbon prints as a result of the three cement manufactures.
The other two papers have a more general objective of studying the environmental disclosures. At
this stage, it is not easy to decipher, the exact contents of the environmental disclosures. Worth
mentioning also is the fact that different organizations have different impacts on the environment.
This infers that a sufficient environmental disclosure of one organization may be insufficient for
another organization even with similar elements disclosed for the respective organizations. What
standout however is that all the three papers have nearly similar aim of establishing the level of
sustainable reports and whether organizations discloses reliable and correct information.

Research questions

The author of the second paper has included guiding questions on the research about Intergrated
Reporting. The author could have, however, started with a question on how the organizations
considers the whole concept of IR. This can help in determining whether it is an accepted policy
or it is not. If accepted, organizations should then be asked on their respective initiatives to comply.
If not, they should also express their opinion on the same and, perhaps, this can change the nature
of questions to ask. This applies to the other papers where the authors make an assumption that all
organization discloses such information to whatever level. With this assumptive generalization,
the authors have gone directly to ascertain the sufficiency of environmental disclosures. The third
paper has not enlisted specific research questions to guide the research. Some of the possible
questions would have been;

 What are the environmental hazards and damages caused by businesses in Bangladesh?
  Does leading companies in Bangladesh are discloses sufficient environmental information
in their annual reports without worrying on the market reputation?

Research methods

The adoption of both qualitative and quantitative analysis gives reliable results and findings.
However, the nature of executing the quantitative and qualitative approach is of concern since
different approaches culminate to different outputs. Furthermore, stakeholder theory tends to be a
more comprehensive and is adopted in the papers. It is however necessary to scrutinize further the
results of stakeholder theory by comparing it qualitatively with other applicable theories like the
legitimacy theory. This is because organizations can give insufficient and unreliable information
to the stakeholders. Better approaches of quantifying the externalities can be best achieved by
synergizing the externalities with the internalities. In this way, they externalities can be considered
as Intergrated into the organization and, therefore, captured comprehensively during reporting.
Relying on annual reports alone to establish the level of environmental disclosure cannot be
justified hence the use of both primary and secondary data sources. In conducting interviews and
getting data using questionnaires, it should be noted that the correspondent should not have conflict
of interest for this can jeopardize the results.

Eminent from the three papers is that they have not incorporated empirical or statistical approach
to confirm with the primary and the secondary data obtained. An empirical approach in this case
could have been Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI) or any other relevant sustainability index.
This can enable even ranking the sustainability performance of the organizations under study for
example the three cement manufactures from Bangladesh. The authors should also considered
using other applicable frameworks of reporting which include the following and not limited to
(Unerman, et al., 2018):

1) IASB Conceptual Framework for Financial Reporting

2) GRI Sustainability Reporting Standards
3) IIRC International Integrated Reporting Framework
4) TCFD Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures
5) SASB Conceptual Framework
6) CDSB Environmental and Natural Capital Reporting Framework
This parameters can be used as a checklist to assess the quality of the disclosed items.

Sample participants

While the third paper considers specific participants (three cement manufacturing companies -
Shah Cement Industries, Bashundhara Group Cement and Lafarge Holcim Cement)

Theories

Tools

Main findings

Conclusion

Transformative reports