{"id":692,"date":"2011-12-19T08:45:18","date_gmt":"2011-12-18T22:45:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.unsw.edu.au\/knowledgetoday\/?p=692"},"modified":"2011-12-19T08:45:18","modified_gmt":"2011-12-18T22:45:18","slug":"two-journeys-%e2%80%93-shared-value-and-integrated-reporting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.unsw.edu.au\/BTOpinion\/blog\/2011\/12\/two-journeys-%e2%80%93-shared-value-and-integrated-reporting\/","title":{"rendered":"Two Journeys \u2013 Shared Value and Integrated Reporting"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Roger Simnett & Sarah Adams | Centre for Social Impact Blog<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

The Centre for Social Impact\u2019s recent roundtable<\/a> was a great opportunity to examine the confluence of two journeys: that of Integrated Reporting<\/a> (and the IIRC), and Shared Value<\/a> (Porter and Kramer 2011). At first glance, these initiatives are quite different: Shared Value refers to a management approach to improve business decision-making, and build economic value (see Phil Preston\u2019s blog <\/a> \u2019Why \u2018shared value\u2019 is good business\u2019), while Integrated Reporting is a new approach to reporting and communicating strategy and performance (see Peter Shergold\u2019s blog<\/a> \u2019Shared Value Business: the Case of Stockland\u2019). However, reflecting on the discussion at the roundtable brought to light some key points where these two journeys intersect.<\/p>\n

A New Role for\u00a0Business<\/strong><\/p>\n

A key connection between the concepts is they both reflect a desire to move beyond businesses prioritising short-term financial performance, and to reorient the efforts of a business toward long-term success and sustainability. This has been driven \u2013 at least in part \u2013 by the very widely articulated social and economic consequences of the \u2018short-termism\u2019 in financial institutions that triggered global economic crisis.<\/p>\n

Alongside this there is an implicit recognition that any organisation or firm is an actor that interacts with a complex social and environmental setting. The Shared Value thesis suggests that that cognizance of, and investment in, an organisation\u2019s social and environmental context can create opportunities for augmenting economic value. That is, social, environmental, economic and other sources of value are interrelated and not necessarily mutually exclusive (which is a common argument among corporate responsibility critics). These underpinnings are also reflected in the capitals approach of Integrated Reporting, where organisations are encouraged to \u2018make visible\u2019 their use and dependence on many sources of capital (financial, manufactured, human, intellectual, natural and social) and how these are used to create value.<\/p>\n

The Trend of Embedding<\/strong><\/p>\n

More broadly, both Shared Value and Integrated Reporting reflect the trend of progressive businesses taking a more strategic approach to sustainability by seeking to embed sustainability into core business practice. Both approaches suggest that breaking down the \u2018silos\u2019 of current practice -the corporate responsibility reports vs. annual reports, and the corporate responsibility departments vs. \u2018the rest\u2019 of the business \u2013 can provide material benefits to organisations. Integrated Reporting is defined<\/a> by \u201cdemonstrating the linkages between an organization\u2019s strategy, governance and financial performance and the social, environmental and economic context within which it operates\u201d, and recent evidence<\/a> shows that the main driver of integrated reporting among the world\u2019s largest companies was \u201cseeking to integrate corporate responsibility into core business\u201d. An example of an organisation pursuing shared value, Stockland<\/a> (as profiled by Peter on this blog) integrates environmental and community benefits into central business activities and to sustain long-term value.<\/p>\n

Looking Out and In<\/strong><\/p>\n

Another key similarity between shared value and integrated reporting is leveraging internal and external factors to the organisation. Two of the ways suggested by Porter and Kramer to create shared value include \u2018reconceiving products and markets\u2019, and \u2018building clusters\u2019 which both necessitate engagement with an organisation\u2019s context, including deeper connections with stakeholders. These indicate that Shared Value revolves around the idea that sensible and productive decision making within an organisation can be made by positively engaging external resources and organisations. On its own journey, a company producing an integrated report will produce an external communication tool (integrated report) which will be responsive and inclusive to stakeholders, but a crucial additional outcome will be improved internal decision-making and information.<\/p>\n

Distinctions<\/strong><\/p>\n

While the two concepts do resonate with each other, their journeys have seen some key distinctions. A key driver of integrated reporting has been the escalating compliance burden of reporting for many organisations. Seeking to cut the clutter<\/a> of annual reports is a key driver of the initiative for both report producers and its readers.<\/p>\n

Another important distinction is the challenges faced in implementation. Integrated Reporting is a holistic and long-term commitment for organisations; for most organisations the production of an integrated report will require extensive preparation and thus a considerable time frame. Integrated Reporting must also accommodate the plethora of laws and standards across the global that relate to reporting compliance and communication. The hurdles are high. In contrast to this, shared value is a more agile management approach, which can be undertaken on many levels: from a product, to program and up to an organisational level.<\/p>\n

Despite these distinctions, there are points of confluence for Integrated Reporting and Shared Value. With great momentum, practitioner and academic interest behind these ideas, it will be instructive to consider how these two approaches learn from, and contribute to each other. What do you think? Is there any value in looking at these two concepts together?<\/p>\n

Roger Simnett<\/a> is a professor in accounting at the Australian School of Business.<\/em><\/p>\n

Sarah Adams<\/a> is the NAB Research Fellow at the Centre for Social Impact.<\/em><\/p>\n

This article first appeared on the CSI blog<\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

        Roger Simnett & Sarah Adams | Centre for Social Impact Blog The Centre for Social Impact\u2019s recent roundtable was a great opportunity to examine the confluence of two journeys: that of Integrated Reporting (and the IIRC), and Shared Value (Porter and Kramer 2011). At first glance, these initiatives are quite different: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":336,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12673],"tags":[12807,12766,12806,12779],"class_list":["post-692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-social-impact","tag-accounting","tag-corporate-responsibility","tag-reporting","tag-social-impact-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.unsw.edu.au\/BTOpinion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.unsw.edu.au\/BTOpinion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.unsw.edu.au\/BTOpinion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.unsw.edu.au\/BTOpinion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/336"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.unsw.edu.au\/BTOpinion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=692"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.unsw.edu.au\/BTOpinion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/692\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":698,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.unsw.edu.au\/BTOpinion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/692\/revisions\/698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.unsw.edu.au\/BTOpinion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.unsw.edu.au\/BTOpinion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.unsw.edu.au\/BTOpinion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}