Integrated reporting: Evaluating a sustainability report in accordance with international reporting framework content elements

Progresses during the last twenty years have emerged the necesssity that organizations should disclose their performances and value cration stories achieved with their business activities in a reporting manner beyond their financial performance. In order to help for organizations to comply with this necessity, International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) has developed an Integrated Reporting Frame (Frame). Explanations regarding to the required information to be included in an integrated report are given in the 'Content Elements' part of the Frame under the titles 'Organizational overview and external environment, Governance, Business model, Risks and opportunities, Strategy and resource allocation, Performance, Outlook, Basis of preparation and presentation'. It is thought that determining at what degree a sustainibility report complies with the Frame Content Elemements requirements would provide usefull information for the studies to be done on integrated reporting in Turkey. Therefore the aim of the presented study was evaluating Arçelik Inc. 2013 (Organization) Sustainabiliy Report (Report) for the level of compliance with Frame requirements in the context of 'Content Elements'. It was determined that in order to display its performance Organization focused more on disclosing non-financial information most of which are quantitative in nature. Disclosing less key performance indicators results in the Report was attributed to the fact that Report was prepared in a sustainability reporting concept. It appears that, though not as an integrated report does, Arçelik Inc. 2013 Sustainability Report complies with Framework Content Elements requirements at large extent, because it provides information on 'what the Organization does and what the circumstances under which it operates are, Organization's governance structure, business model utilized, the ways of handling risks and opportunities, how strategies are implemented and resources are allocated and performance of the organization'. In this context it could be said that the Report reflects the Organization's integrated thinking and value creation process.