How pressure from stakeholders affects integrated reporting quality

Integrated reporting (IR) is considered an innovative and effective reporting tool that includes financial and nonfinancial information. Recently, there has been a heightened emphasis on IR from both academic and professional viewpoints. However, despite the importance of stakeholders in the practice of IR, their impact on the report drafting process has not been analysed in any study. Therefore, this study aims to fill this gap by analysing the relationship between stakeholders' pressure and IR quality. On the basis of the stakeholder theory, this study uses a regression model to demonstrate how the IR quality is significantly and positively associated with the stakeholders' pressures. Specifically, results of this study indicate that pressures from customers, environmental protection organizations, employees, shareholders, and governments determine the IR quality. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study that investigates stakeholders' pressure as a determinant of IR quality.