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In 2013, the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) first released the international integrated reporting (IIR) framework with the aim of aiding organisations, both public and private sectors, to embed sustainable business practices in their operations (IFRS Foundation, 2021; IIRC, 2013). The IIR framework, whose responsibility was, in October 2022, transferred from IIRC to the IFRS Foundation, emphasises integrated reporting as a business process that results in the publication of an integrated report (Eccles and Saltzman, 2011; Gore and Bond, 2011; Jebe, 2014). The integrated report is designed to explain how an organisation creates value over the short term, medium term and long terms. In this context, the IIR framework calls for organisations to integrate, in their reporting, both financial and sustainability-related information to aid stakeholder understanding of the organisation's operations and value creation processes (Baboukardos et al., 2021; Stubbs and Higgins, 2014).While integrated reporting as a concept is not new, its momentum gathered significantly following the 2008–2009 global financial crisis, mainly driven by concerns of a perceived disconnect between financial information and sustainability-related information (Eccles and Saltzman, 2011). This disconnect in financial and sustainability-related information was, and still is, considered a major obstacle for stakeholders in understanding how companies create short-, medium- and long-term value within the context of their environment (Gore and Blood, 2011; IIRC, 2013; IoDSA, 2016). It is in this context that the IIRC was tasked to develop the IIRC framework and promote its application across countries 1. Although the IIRC framework has only been made mandatory for listed companies in South Africa, integrated reporting as a corporate reporting regime has increasingly become prevalent in different regions of the world over the years. According to the IFRS Foundation (2024), integrated reporting is recommended and applied voluntarily by companies in over 75 countries around the world. A 2022 KPMG survey (KPMG, 2022) also shows increasing uptake of integrated reporting by companies in Latin America, Asia Pacific, Europe and the Middle East and Africa.Proponents of integrated reporting promote it as a business process that leads to a change in corporate behaviour towards sustainable business practices by embedding sustainability in their operations in substantive ways (Eccles and Saltzman, 2011; Gore and Bond, 2011; IoDSA, 2016; Jebe, 2014). In this context, integral to integrated reporting is the concept of “integrated thinking” – which encompasses an organisation's decision-making and actions towards the capitals it uses and affects (IFRS Foundation, 2021)2. According to Churet et al. (2014) and Baboukardos et al. (2021), integrated thinking can be considered a systematic approach that supports how organisations strategically embed sustainable business practices in their operations in value creation. To this extent, the integrated reporting framework plays a dual role of (1) providing stakeholders with better understanding, via reporting, of how sustainable value is created within the context of the organisation's environment and (2) supporting integrated decision-making and actions that focus on creating value in sustainable ways (Barth et al., 2017; IFRS Foundation, 2021; Wu and Zhou, 2021).Taking this approach means that the integrated reporting framework is a critical tool for good corporate governance with implications for sustainable business practices. Indeed, both the IIRC (2013) and King Report on Corporate Governance for South Africa (IoDSA, 2016) emphasise the critical role of corporate governance in facilitating the effective adoption and implementation of integrated reporting practices. Research indicates that organisations adopting integrated reporting increasingly commit to addressing broader sustainability considerations, including social and environmental impacts, multi-capital value creation and accountability to a wide range of stakeholders rather than shareholders alone (Arora et al., 2022). These practices are associated with integrated thinking, whereby sustainability considerations are incorporated into organisational strategy, risk management and governance processes, supporting more holistic decision-making and long-term value creation (De Villiers et al., 2014; McNally and Maroun, 2018). Further evidence indicates that early adoption of integrated reporting can contribute to incremental improvements in sustainability-related processes and organisational structures – such as cross-functional collaboration, integrated planning and reporting processes and internal governance mechanisms – rather than radical organisational transformation (Stubbs and Higgins, 2014), alongside reported improvements in productivity and environmental performance (Caldera et al., 2019). Other studies demonstrate the value of integrated reporting to investors. For instance, studies have shown that integrated reporting has firm valuation implications (Baboukardos and Rimmel, 2016; Barth et al., 2017; Lee and Yeo, 2016; Zhou et al., 2017) and is useful for analyst forecasting (Bernardi and Stark, 2018).A growing body of studies provides nuanced evidence on the role of corporate governance in shaping integrated reporting practices and quality. Traditional governance mechanisms, such as board effectiveness and audit committee oversight, together with sustainability-oriented mechanisms (e.g. sustainability committees and non-financial performance measures in executive compensation), are positively associated with integrated reporting quality and the use of credibility-enhancing mechanisms, with these effects attributed to governance diligence, expertise and independence (Appiagyei et al., 2023; Injeni et al., 2022; Wang et al., 2020). Complementing this evidence, Erin (2025) show that integrated reporting practices are significantly influenced by the combined effect of corporate governance structures and external assurance in the South African context. Ahmed (2023) demonstrates that some governance characteristics (board size, board independence and risk management committee independence) are positively associated with integrated reporting practices. In a meta-analysis study of 61 papers published between 2015 and 2021, Dragomir and Dumitru (2023) document a significant positive relationship between some governance variables (social responsibility committee, institutional ownership and Big-4 Auditor) and integrated reporting but insignificant relation with others (board gender diversity, audit committee independence and assurance, CEO-chair duality and concentrated ownership).Integrated reporting is, however, not an uncontested practice. Opponents argue that the focus of integrated reporting on the providers of capital implies a focus on the capital markets (Flowers, 2015). This is considered problematic because capital markets generally look for high returns in the short term (Kavadis and Thomsen, 2023), and this puts pressure on businesses to focus on creating value for capital markets rather than sustainable development. Others, particularly those with a focus on the majority world (or non-Western countries), argue that the integrated reporting framework, like other corporate governance frameworks, originated from Western-dominated corporate governance dialogues and is deeply rooted in Western capital market models (Suhardjo et al., 2025). This, according to critical research, reduces their relevance to most of the majority world because they do not take account of the related environment (Kimani et al., 2026; Uddin, 2025). Consequently, compliance with these Western governance and reporting reforms in non-Western settings may be symbolic (i.e. formally embraced but inconsistently or superficially applied) rather than function as a driver of organisational or societal change (Uddin, 2025). Inconclusive and contradictory results from non-Western contexts may therefore be attributed to the distinct characteristics of these regions – where economic, social and governance realities do not align with Western objectives (Barnett, 2024). There is a need for further empirically and theoretically engaged research that explores the effectiveness of corporate governance practices in non-Western contexts to address the epistemic injustice evident in accounting scholarship, where the field has long been dominated by Anglo-American and Western European perspectives – often at the expense of knowledge generated in other parts of the world (Fricker, 2007).The papers in this special issue aim to enhance understanding of corporate governance practices in emerging markets within the context of sustainable business practices. Emerging markets are important to examine for several reasons. First, they face unique and significant sustainability challenges such as poverty, inequality and access to healthcare and education (United Nations, 2023). Bill Gates (2025), for example, emphasises that helping people in emerging markets to adapt to new climate realities by addressing social issues like nutrition, productivity and health should lead climate strategies like emission targets. Second, regulatory and institutional environments in emerging markets are weak, leading to insufficient monitoring and control in organisations (Adegbite, 2015; Luiz and Stewart, 2014). Whilst emerging markets are adopting Western-based firm-level governance structures, the weak regulatory framework means the adoption of such structures may be symbolic – leading to insufficiencies and wasted resources (Ahmed and Uddin, 2018, 2022; Kimani et al., 2021; Uddin, 2025). Third, emerging markets play an important role in the global economy, and over the past 2 decades, they have contributed significantly to global output (Ararat et al., 2021; Huidrom et al., 2020; Najaf et al., 2021). Fourth, the role of corporate governance on sustainability and the way that organisations support the United Nations sustainable development goals (SDGs) have become a global priority (Ararat et al., 2021), and there are accelerated efforts to meet the SDGs across the globe, including emerging markets (United Nations, 2023). Thus, research from emerging markets will contribute to the debate on how corporate governance can enhance and accelerate sustainable development.In the next two sections of this editorial, we summarise the five papers included in this special issue and conclude the editorial by offering insights for future research in this research area.This special issue of Corporate Governance comprises five papers examining the role of corporate governance structures in sustainable business practices in emerging markets. The papers address three key issues on corporate governance and sustainable business practices, namely, whether sustainability reporting is aligned to sustainability practices; how board characteristics affect sustainable business practices within the context of corporate governance reform; and the inter-relationships between board processes, task performance and board effectiveness. From a geographical perspective, four of the five accepted papers are contributions from South Africa and one paper is from Bangladesh. The dominance of one jurisdiction in Africa, that is, South Africa, in this special issue is perhaps not surprising given the leading role South Africa has played as the first country to adopt mandatory integrated reporting practices. In addition, the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) remains the largest stock exchange in Africa. On the other hand, integrated reporting is yet in early stages of voluntary adoption in Bangladesh, which provides an interesting setting on corporate governance reform in an emerging market country where corporate transparency remains a pressing concern and financial misreporting is not uncommon (Khatun et al., 2022). From a methodological perspective, the papers in this special issue mostly followed a quantitative approach, with paper five applying a qualitative (via questionnaires) input-process-output approach.The first two papers explored the alignment between sustainability reporting and sustainability practices by incorporating firm-level corporate governance measures as a potential moderator. In the first paper, Ecim and Maroun (2026) reviewed the integrated reporting practices of the 60 largest companies listed on the JSE for their 2019 and 2020 year-ends to identify features that point to evidence of an integrated thinking logic (namely, the concurrent management of economic, environmental and social factors in the interest of long-term value creation and business continuity). Integrated reporting by South African listed companies is de facto mandatory, and therefore, integrated reports are prepared by listed companies to meet governance and market expectations (IoDSA, 2016). The authors applied a content analysis methodology to develop an integrating thinking matrix covering the content, attributes and connectivity of information included in an integrated report. This novel approach is more refined compared to using broad quality indicators relied upon by earlier research and allows for linking integrated reporting disclosures to the underlying integrated thinking logic. The authors employed simple correlations to establish links among the disclosure themes, allowing for elements of an integrated thinking logic to be identified. The findings showed that reporting practices of organisations remain varied. Some companies are pioneering new ways to deal with the interconnectivity of information, multi-capital management and sustainable development. Others continue to see integrated reporting as an exercise in aggregating financial statements and environmental and social disclosures. The authors conclude that the extent to which organisations have internalised integrated thinking provides a possible explanation for these differences. The authors also suggest that organisations aiming to improve their integrated thinking application need to invest in more sophisticated management information systems and accounting and governance infrastructure. However, given South Africa's long history of mandatory integrated reporting, the varied evidence on integrated thinking is somewhat surprising and begs the question of whether integrated reporting is a “fit-for-all” framework that is contextually relevant and responsive to the developmental needs of emerging markets. Within the broader context of sustainability reporting, this study may provide epistemic evidence from an emerging market to the ongoing work of the International Sustainability Standards Board in developing a global standard for the reporting of sustainability-related information (ISSB, 2021).The second paper by Nel et al. (2026) investigates how corporate governance influences the alignment between companies' environmental commitment and implementation by drawing on the concept of policy-practice decoupling. The study relied on corporate carbon performance as a proxy for environmental commitment and environmental disclosure levels to capture the extent of the implementation of environmental management practices. Although the study adopts a composite measure consistent with the “bundles” approach to capture corporate governance practices, several individual corporate governance variables were also examined instead of the composite measure to test robustness. Using a dataset of JSE-listed companies covering the period 2012 to 2023, the results show that corporate governance positively moderates the relationship between environmental disclosure practices and environmental commitment. However, a Johnson–Neyman analysis indicates that corporate governance matters only when firms prioritise implementing corporate governance principles, as reflected in higher levels of governance disclosure. Although the study finds that corporate governance practices reduce policy–practice decoupling, their influence emerges only once a minimum level of governance compliance is reached. The main findings remained unchanged following the use of additional analyses and alternative proxies for environmental commitment, implementation and corporate governance. The study findings highlight the need to strengthen governance rules that promote diversity, independence and accountability on boards. Overall, the study suggests that investing in strong governance systems can enhance the credibility of sustainability reporting. This study, therefore, contributes to literature on the role of firm-level corporate governance on policy-practice decoupling. The role of board diversity in shaping organisational behaviour echoes evidence from developed markets, but the methodological approach applied may not have captured all the nuances relevant in an emerging market context – specifically cultural diversity within the organisation and the board (Uddin, 2025).Papers three and four explored the role of board characteristics within the context of sustainable business practices – with a specific focus on recent corporate governance reforms. The relevant regulatory reforms were the adoption of integrated reporting in Bangladesh (in the paper by Sobhan and Khatun (2026)) and the implementation of the King IV Report on Corporate Governance for South Africa (in the paper by Terblanche et al. (2026)). Sobhan and Khatun (2026) explored the association between integrated reporting and earnings management across a panel of 50 listed manufacturing companies in Bangladesh over the 2018–2022 period. They also examine the moderating effect of board characteristics (namely board size, independence and gender diversity) on this association. The integrated reporting variable represented an index value that was compiled using a content analysis based on the content elements of the integrated reporting framework of 2013. The findings show that while there is a growing trend of voluntary adoption of the integrated reporting framework, the levels of disclosure remain relatively low, with the highest average score of 51.39% in 2022. The regression results show a negative and significant association between integrated reporting disclosures and earnings management, suggesting that organisations providing more disclosures through integrated reporting are less likely to engage in earnings management. Furthermore, larger boards and increased board gender diversity were found to effectively strengthen the role of integrated reporting in reducing earnings management. The study, therefore, provides support for firm-level corporate governance measures enhancing sustainable business practices. The authors suggest that regulators take the necessary steps to ensure improved quality in integrated report disclosures and effective implementation of firm-level governance structures in Bangladesh. The study provides timely evidence on the role of corporate governance in a fragile context and calls for regulators and standard setters to adopt a more inclusive and context-sensitive approach to accelerate the adoption of regulatory reforms (Uddin, 2025).In paper four, Terblanche et al. (2026) investigated whether heightened emphasis on board diversity (especially in of and in the to the Report on Corporate Governance for South Africa to in board diversity and whether these were associated with improved financial and sustainability They a panel from the companies listed on the JSE for the which the period and the implementation of King The board diversity on and were from integrated (or while financial and sustainability performance were from the and Board diversity was both as a composite index and in of the individual of board gender The results show that gender and diversity increased the implementation of King of board diversity were found to not significantly affect on the composite measure of board diversity, the results were King board diversity was positively associated with market value but this association negative the implementation of King Furthermore, board diversity was related to social performance and positively to environmental performance King and King the association to board diversity positively related to social performance and related to environmental The authors the results to the that corporate governance such as King IV may reduce as companies and stakeholders question the value of further reforms. South African companies may not yet have the of boards the period of the The authors therefore that effective diversity should setting towards that inclusive and boards. The results of this study however, point towards the distinct attributes of emerging social development a key priority within developing markets, the positive relationship between board diversity and social performance King IV may that boards in emerging markets are social while efforts to address environmental concerns and market are not as The results therefore provide knowledge that is contextually relevant and (Uddin, paper of the special issue et al., explored how practices to organisational objectives in South African public and private They from via and applied an input-process-output and to the inter-relationships between board processes, task performance and board effectiveness. Board characteristics (namely board size, independence and gender and diversity) were as control while board task performance was included as the Board processes were found to be of board task performance and board effectiveness than the considered board Furthermore, significant was reported for all and for the board process and the that boards are for implementing sustainable business practices, the results the of the processes in to organisational Consequently, the authors that organisations and regulators should not focus on the characteristics of board but also be of behaviour and to ensure that this corporate organisational The quantitative approach of this study, where the of both public and private role were supports the for methodological to study the nuances of corporate governance within an emerging market context (Uddin, papers in this special issue investigated the role of corporate governance structures in the implementation of organisational objectives and integrated reporting practices to support sustainable business practices. The additional evidence by this special issue supports the value of integrated reporting and corporate governance practices in emerging markets, but the application of regulatory to align with Western results reported in this special issue point towards the distinct characteristics of emerging markets, with global not responsive to the developmental needs of non-Western It is therefore recommended that standard setters and corporate governance towards a global knowledge framework that is contextually relevant and in support of a sustainable future for the papers in this special issue provide important insights into the of sustainable business practices from two countries – South Africa and Bangladesh – future studies can epistemic and non-Western by also emerging markets like Latin and the Middle as as and fragile qualitative like and in future research can further enhance the understanding of the distinct contexts within emerging (Uddin, 2025). It is also that the five papers in this special issue are mainly on private have an important role to play in emerging including their role in collaboration, there is a need for future studies to also engage more with contextually governance including ownership structures, as and understanding of the relationship between corporate integrated reporting and sustainable business practices further from applying non-Western like as a in research and research
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