The integrated report in the south african mining companies listed on the Johannesburg stock exchange (jse): analysis of non-financial information and impacts on external disclosure

The aim of this study is to analyze the current state of Business Reporting, which includes, in addition to financial information, non-financial (qualitative and quantitative) one about the companies’ ability to generate value in a sustainable manner and the associated risks. In particular the purpose is to check the elaboration by the companies of a new business reporting framework, called Integrated Report (Eccles, & Krzus, 2009; Eccles, & Armbrester, 2011), which is able to link financial information to the non-financial one disclosed by the companies, with a particular focus to the items of environmental and social sustainability and to corporate governance. As a result the integrated report can be evaluated as a reporting tool which is able to systematically judge the balanced correlation between all information disclosed by the firms. The objective of the paper is to identify the major items of non-financial disclosure in the Integrated Report, in order to specify the major benefits arising from the adoption of a unique report, instead of the traditional annual report, which is focused on financial dimensions, and of the other reports of corporate reporting (such as sustainable and environmental reporting and the intellectual capital statements), which are drawn up by the companies as voluntary reports. In particular the purpose of this study is to analyse the nature and extent of non-financial disclosures in Integrated Report of 20 South African mining companies listed on the JSE Securities Exchange. The mining sector was chosen because of its high risk with regards to ethical, social and environmental issues (Firk, 2002) and its significant role in the South African economy.