Title: Effect of board attributes on the quality of integrated reports: evidence from India

Authors: Devarapalli Suman; Sasikanta Tripathy; Lalita Mohan Mohapatra

Addresses: Department of Management, VR Siddhartha Engineering College (Deemed to be University), Vijayawada, Andhra Pradesh, 520007, India ' Department of Economics and Finance, University of Bahrain, Bahrain ' Paari School of Business, SRM University AP, India

Abstract: Integrated reporting (IR) is a novel concept in corporate sustainability reporting, which prompts corporates for voluntary adoption of the reporting practice to generate value. The board features play a significant role in the adoption of IR. The IR has received significant attention but the impact of the board features on IR quality is still not extensively examined in developing countries like India. This study fills the gap by examining the association between board characteristics and IR quality in Indian context. The study employed fixed effect and random effect models for 46 corporates for a period of three years, i.e., 2019–2021. The empirical analysis found that board size, CEO duality, number of board meetings, and firm size had significant association with IR quality. In contrast, the number of independent members on board, percentage of women on board, liquidity and solvency has insignificant relationship with IR quality. This study extends the applicability of agency and stakeholders' theories to the IR framework. The study has implications for corporate executives and academicians on the effectiveness board features on IR quality.

Keywords: integrated reporting; sustainability; board size; CEO duality; women on the board; India.

DOI: 10.1504/IJCG.2025.144254

International Journal of Corporate Governance, 2025 Vol.15 No.1, pp.75 - 98

Received: 13 Mar 2024
Accepted: 02 Dec 2024
Published online: 03 Feb 2025 *