The Role of Corporate Sustainability in Shaping Integrated Reporting Quality: Insights From Europe

Drawing on corporate sustainability and integrated reporting literature, this study investigates the extent to which corporate sustainability strategy influences integrated reporting quality, with a particular focus on the moderating role of national governance.Using a comprehensive panel data sample of 2850 firm-year observations from 285 non-financial firms across six key European economies (the United Kingdom, Germany, Denmark, France, Sweden, and Italy) over the period 2013-2022, our study contributes to the extant literature by providing timely evidence on the impact of corporate sustainability strategy on integrated reporting quality.Our findings show that firms with strong sustainability strategies tend to engage in high-quality integrated reporting.Furthermore, our evidence suggests that the influence of corporate sustainability strategy on integrated reporting is moderated/explained largely by national governance.Our findings are robust to controlling for various endogeneity issues, with major implications for managers, policymakers, governments, and other stakeholders.