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Taking into consideration the lively debate about recognition, measurement, and disclosure criteria for heritage assets (HA) in financial reporting, the purpose of this paper is to examine the comment letters submitted by governmental organizations regarding the consultation paper (CP) on HA in order to understand what is the position of the governmental organizations in relation to critical issues of the accounting and financial reporting of HA.

From a methodological point of view, a content analysis was performed. First, the responses were classified according to level of agreement with the 13 items included in the CP on HA; second, the arguments adduced by respondents in supporting or contradicting the proposed approaches and definitions have been investigated.

The majority of responses came from countries with relevant differences in culture, administrative traditions and accounting systems. Governmental organizations strongly agreed with the recognition of heritage items as “assets” in financial reporting, while conflicting positions on measuring bases were identified.

This study is one of the few studies based on the content of the comment letters received in response to the CP on HA. The present study can also give an idea of the content of the future IPSAS on HA. Moreover, it is the first study attempting to enrich the debate on governmental organizations’ participation to the IPSAS standard-setting process.

The latest developments in the football industry, the commodification of sport, the excessive focus on profitability and the limited attention to social and environmental aspects have caused a legitimation crisis for football clubs. According to the legitimacy theory, the corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure represents a tool capable of allowing the construction or repair of legitimacy. This study, in line with this theory, aims to analyse the amount of CSR disclosure provided by football clubs and the determinants, related to visibility, of the level of information provided.

This study uses a manual content analysis on the corporate websites of the 80 football clubs that qualified for the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League group stages for the 2019–2020 year to measure the level of CSR disclosure and subsequently a regression analysis to examine the impact of visibility on the amount of information provided.

Results reveal that football clubs still disclose relatively little information about sustainability issues, and that sports performance visibility, human capital visibility and social media visibility positively affect the amount of information that football clubs disclose.

This study extends the horizons of CSR disclosure to the football industry which is still little explored in the academic literature. Furthermore, it extends the scope of legitimacy theory, showing how CSR disclosure can be a means for football clubs to obtain or repair legitimacy. Furthermore, this study extends the list of determinants of the level of CSR disclosure, showing that visibility can influence the amount of CSR information.

The purpose of this paper is to explore a citizen-centered tool for public accountability, the popular report (PR). Elaborating on previous studies and on content analysis of a sample of municipalities in the USA, this paper aims to identify the qualitative characteristics and content elements that PR should have to serve as a legitimation tool.

The study adopts a mixed methodology. After the analysis of previous studies on PR and best practices in US municipalities, a list of content elements and qualitative characteristics of PR is compared with results emerging from the content analysis of PR published by of a sample of municipalities in the USA.

The analysis reveals that the PR should embed information about the government’s sources of revenues and taxes, expenditures, cost of government services, liveability and governance of the city.

The paper offers new knowledge on reporting centered on citizens, framing the analysis in the legitimacy theory. Even though the research relates only to the US context, the results may assist standard setters in preparing guidelines for local governments to communicate financial data to citizens and stimulate further research in other contexts.

The results may encourage local governments to prepare a PR suitable to discharge accountability and gain legitimation.

This study is the first to discuss the PR within a theoretical framework, in this case, legitimacy theory. Moreover, a further novelty lays in the analysis carried out on the PRs published by US municipalities in order to derive qualitative characteristics and content elements with which the PR should comply.

The study aims to examine the impact of corporate governance in terms of certain board characteristics on the level of universities’ voluntary sustainability disclosure.

A content analysis based on a comprehensive disclosure index – that also accounts for the impact that COVID-19 exerted on the social dimension of university activities – is performed on a sample of Italian public universities’ websites for the year 2020. An ordinary least squares regression model is estimated to test the association between universities’ board characteristics, namely, board size, board independence and board gender diversity (including the presence of a female rector), and online sustainability disclosure.

This study provides evidence that websites represent a valid tool used by universities to highlight their social performance and demonstrate their commitment to dealing with the pandemic’s social and economic disruption by supporting their stakeholders. Board gender diversity and female Rector’s presence are crucial factors that positively impact voluntary sustainability disclosure levels.

Policymakers and regulators can benefit from the study’s findings. Using the results of this study, they may reflect on the need to regulate sustainability reporting in universities. In addition, findings may offer policymakers inspiration for regulating the presence of women on university boards.

This study offers novel contributions to existing literature analysing the university’s voluntary sustainability disclosure practices through alternative communication tools such as websites. Moreover, it provides novel insight into the role of the board gender diversity in university sustainability disclosure practices.

This study aims to investigate the relationship between corporate sustainable development goals (SDGs) disclosure and analyst forecast quality.

The study focuses on a sample of 95 Italian-listed companies preparing the mandatory non-financial declaration (NFD) according to the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) standards over a five-year period (2017–2021), corresponding to an unbalanced sample of 438 observations. Analyst forecast quality was proxied by earnings forecast accuracy (FA) and earnings forecast dispersion (FD), built on data retrieved from the Refinitiv database. A manual content analysis was performed on NFDs to derive an SDG disclosure score (SDGD) for each sampled company.

This study provides empirical evidence suggesting that voluntary SDG disclosure matters to the capital market in that it helps enhance the information environment of companies, evidenced by improved analyst forecast quality. In particular, this study highlighted that SDG disclosure positively influences analyst FA while negatively affecting analyst FD.

This study focuses on the Italian context, which has idiosyncratic characteristics regarding the structure of the financial market, the composition of corporate ownership and experience in non-financial reporting practices.

This study indicates to corporate managers that following GRI standards may represent the right way to better integrate SDG disclosure in corporate non-financial reports and increase the relevance of such information for investors and other capital market participants.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that empirically examines the association between SDG disclosure and analyst forecast quality.

The present research aims to analyse the extent to which Italian public universities disclose intellectual capital (IC) information through the Integrated Plan and the main features of IC disclosure (ICD) in terms of form and location in the document.

Adopting a qualitative methodology, a content analysis is conducted to examine the level, form and location of ICD provided by a sample of 60 Italian public universities through the 2018-2020 integrated plans.

The results show a medium level of ICD in the Integrated Plan, with human capital being the category most disclosed. Information is principally provided in a quantitative form and is mainly found in the first two sections of the document (i.e. relating to the strategic framework and organisational performance).

The analysis is necessarily limited to a single period (2018-2020), because of the recent introduction of the guidelines of the Integrated Plan. However, the results may be beneficial to policymakers in determining the usefulness of this new tool in detecting information about intangible resources and can help universities’ governors and managers in defining adequate IC strategies to create value for the whole ecosystem.

The study makes an innovative contribution to the international debate about IC in universities in light of the fourth stage of IC research, exploring an emerging tool to detect whether it is able to convey IC information to the wide range of university stakeholders and to communicate the value universities contribute to society.

The purpose of this paper is to explore a new way to disclose intellectual capital (IC) in universities through their websites. Going beyond traditional tools used for intellectual capital disclosure (ICD), this study aims at identifying possible determinants of ICD via the web.

This paper analyses the institutional websites of a sample of Italian universities adapting the theoretical framework developed by Low et al. (2015) to the peculiarities of the Italian university system. Moreover, the relationship between certain explanatory factors identified in previous research and the extent of online ICD represented by two disclosure indexes was tested through an ordinary least squares regression model.

The analysis reveals the extensive use of ICD via websites, especially regarding human and internal capital, while the disclosure of external capital through this means is still limited. Internationality and online visibility both positively affect the extent of a university’s ICD.

The paper represents the first study investigating online ICD and its determinants in universities, contributing new knowledge to help answer the how and what of the matter.

The results can serve as encouragement to university managers to enhance online ICD to meet the information needs of a wider audience.

This is the first study to provide evidence about online ICD in universities and to reveal some of the possible determinants to improve this disclosure.

This study aims to examine the impact of corporate governance attributes, in the form of board characteristics, on risk disclosures provided through integrated reporting (IR).

Drawing upon an agency theory perspective, this study examines the effect of the main corporate governance board characteristics (size, gender diversity, independence and meeting frequency) on the level of risk disclosure provided by a sample of 95 IR adopters from 24 countries for 2018.

The results suggest that firms are slow to realise IR’s potential to produce innovations in risk disclosure mechanisms. In addition, certain board characteristics, such as gender diversity, independence of directors and meeting frequency, are positive drivers of the risk disclosure provided via IR.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that investigates the impact of corporate governance mechanisms on risk disclosure provided via IR. Connecting corporate governance mechanisms to IR risk disclosure practices can contribute to enhancing the practical and theoretical understanding of the role that the board of directors may play in stimulating transparency and accountability about risks via an alternative communication tool, IR, to the benefit of both investors and other stakeholders.

This study aims to contribute to the existing literature by presenting new knowledge about sustainable development goals’ (SDGs) reporting practices through integrated reporting (IR). This paper’s ultimate goal is to dig to light companies’ main approaches to incorporating SDG disclosures into IRs.

This study puts forward both deductive content analysis and an inductive thematic analysis on a sample of worldwide leading IR adopters to assess what SDGs they disclose and how they integrate SDGs into the reports. Meaningful narratives and graphical illustrations are selected, categorised and discussed from a symbolic/substantive legitimacy perspective.

The results of this study highlighted that although a fair number of leading IR adopters addressed SDG issues, their pathways to disclosure were not uniform. In some cases, SDGs inspired substantive changes to internal management and process, communicated through an integrated approach. However, there was a persistent trend of using SDGs as camouflage and symbolic tool to enhance company’s reputation and obtain a licence to operate.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this was the first study that performed a deductive/inductive thematic analysis to engender insight into the most meaningful patterns followed by leading IR reporters worldwide to disclose their contributions to SDGs and address their legitimacy.

This study aims to analyse the extent and type of online intellectual capital (IC) disclosure provided by a sample of 117 Italian listed companies. The study also seeks to identify possible determinants of the extent and type of intellectual capital disclosure (ICD) practiced by Italian listed companies via the Web.

A content analysis is conducted to investigate the extent and type of online ICD provided through websites by a sample of 117 Italian listed companies. Two multivariate ordinary least squares regression models are applied to estimate the associations proposed in the research hypotheses.

The results show that Italian listed companies are exploiting the potential of websites to satisfy the information needs of investors and other stakeholders in relation to strategic IC-based corporate resources, with a particular focus on external capital. For the most part, ICD is conveyed in narrative form. Moreover, while the size and board independence positively affect both the extent and type of ICD, profitability exerts a positive influence only on the extent of online ICD.

Unlike previous ICD studies, which focussed on annual reports, this study explores an emerging and innovative tool to convey ICD, namely, the website. In today’s world, websites are considered to be the most expedient and effective tools for sharing and transmitting information, including IC; they are a vehicle that can shift the IC focus from the organisation to the wider ecosystem.