THESIS REPOR ON

PRACTICE OF INTEGRATED REPORTING

IN BANGLADESH
Program: MBA
Department of Accounting
2019-2020

This Research Report has been submitted in fulfillment the requirements of the degree of
Masters of Business Administration in Accounting Department

Guided by
Sumon Bhattacharjee, PhD
Associate Professor
Department of Accounting
University of Chittagong

Submitted by
Pue Das
ID: 16301083
Program: MBA
Session: 2019-2020

Faculty of Business Administration

University of Chittagong
Chattogram-4331
Bangladesh

Date of Submission: January 5, 2023

 Letter of Submission

January 5, 2023
Sumon Bhattacharjee, PhD
Associate Professor
Department of Accounting
University of Chittagong.
Subject: Submission of a research report on “Practice of Integrated Reporting in Bangladesh”.

Dear Sir,
It is my pleasure to submit my thesis report on “Practice of Integrated Reporting in Bangladesh". I am
submitting this report as a partial requirement of my MBA degree.

This report attempts to describe my observations and learning during the study of this topic. In caseof
preparing this report, I tried my best to follow your instructions. The paper is based on my knowledge and
experience I gathered throughout the process. This report gives me an opportunity to apply my theoretical
expertise and communication skills and bridge them with real world experience. I have tried my best to
make this report comprehensive and informative as much as possible within the time allowed for me. Due
to various limitations there may be some mistakes for which I beg your apology.

Lastly, I shall be glad to answer any kind of query relating to this report, if necessary.

Yours’ sincerely,
Pue Das
Id: 16301083
Program: MBA
Session: 2019-2020
Department of Accounting
University of Chittagong
 Acceptance Certificate

Pue Das, a student of Accounting Department, University of Chittagong of M.B.A program, session: 2019-
2020, with ID NO: 16301083 has completed research report on “Practice of Integrated Reporting in
Bangladesh” as a part of partial fulfillment of obtaining MBA program. Pue Das has completed the report
by herself with relevant information collected from student of university of Chittagong under my direct
supervision and all the methodology have been followed to prepare this report.I have found that it meets
the standard of M.B.A research report.

She is permitted to submit the research report.

Signature

Sumon Bhattacharjee, PhD

Associate Professor
Department of Accounting
University of Chittagong
 Acknowledgment

This research report can never be the work of one-man effort. It is the result of valuable contribution of a
number of individuals in a direct or indirect manner that helped on shaping and achieving the objective. I
wish to express my sincere gratitude to numerous people who have been associated with me throughout
this project. First of all, I would like to thank my Almighty God for the wisdom anddiligence that has been
entrusted over me to complete the research within scheduled time successfully.I would like to thank my
honorable supervisor, Sumon Bhattacharjee for his kind patience, guidance and support during
conducting this research. I will always be indebted to him for the valuable suggestion and the time he had
spent for guiding me through the report.
I am also indebted to all students of University of Chittagong who extended their wholehearted
cooperation to me despite their huge workload during this research. They gave me essential information
during face-to-face speech. They gave me proper guidance that they could provide.
I would like to express my heartiest gratitude to some of my friends for their kind co-operation to complete
this research in due time by giving their valuable views and ideas.
Last but not the least; I would like to thank my parents for their unconditional support both financiallyand
emotionally throughout my MBA program in Chittagong University. In particular, the patience and
understanding shown by my father and mother during the years of this degree, is greatly appreciated.
 Executive Summary
Today’s organizations experience a growing pressure exercised by various types of stakeholders
because of the increased public concern regarding environmental and social issues. Hence,
companies must assume their responsibility for the improvement of the environment and the
society within which they operate which could be materialized through the disclosure of
sustainability and corporate responsibility information. The main challenge is not to simply
increase the amount of information provided inside the annual reports, but to increase their
relevance through new, comprehensive and condensed reporting practices which combine and
interconnect financial and non-financial data. Integrated reporting is an effective way of
communicating how well a company is implementing a sustainable strategy and forming a
discipline to ensure that the company has a sustainable strategy at the first place. A sustainable
society requires its companies to have sustainable strategies. Stakeholders now value information
on forward-looking sustainability of a company as much as they value its historical financial
information. Existing financial reporting standards are inadequate to address issues like the
importance of intangible assets, corporate impacts on the environment, human health, societal
conditions and corporate influence on the political process, customer loyalty, integrity, employee
morale etc. The traditional reporting model focuses on a relatively narrow account of historical
financial performance of the value-creation process. Keeping this in mind, the International
Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) has developed an International Integrated Reporting
Framework, the core objective of which is to guide organizations in communicating the broad set
of information needed by investors and other stakeholders to assess the organization’s long-term
prospects in a clear, concise, connected and comparable format. The IIRC shares the view that the
evolution of corporate reporting should be led by the communication of value creation by the
corporate entities. In Bangladesh, Integrated Reporting is not mandatory but keeping in mind the
growing needs of the users of information, the providers of information have started providing
various ESG information on performance and accomplishments in the areas of product safety,
quality and integrity, marketing and innovation, community support, workplace rights and
protecting the environment. In this research, the non-financial reporting journey of the
multinational companies of Bangladesh has been analyzed. While conducting the research, the
main limitation faced was that no globally accepted framework specifying what goes into an
integrated report exists. So, it was hard to judge the contents of an annual report and conclude if
it is following the integrated reporting rules. A closely related challenge was that there was no
internationally accepted set of standards for measuring and reporting non-financial information.
Therefore, the measurement systems for non-financial information might differ according to
company circumstances.
 Table Content

Serial Topic Page Number

1 Letter of Submission 2
2 Acceptance Certificate 3
3 Acknowledgement 4
4 Executive Summary 5

Chapter One Introduction 8

1.1 Background of the Integrated Reporting 8
1.1(A) The International IR Framework 9
1.1(B) IR Aims To 10

1.2 IR in Bangladesh 10
1.2(A) Starting Block of IR in Bangladesh 11
1.2(B) Organizations in Bangladesh keeping up 11
with IR

1.3 Objective of the Study 12

1.4 Conclusion of Chapter (1) 13

Chapter Two Literature review 13
Chapter Three Theoretical Perspective 15
Chapter Four Methodology 16
(1) GRI Guideline for Sustainability 17
Reporting
(2) Integrated Reporting Contents (IIRC 19
Guidelines)

Chapter Five Findings and Analysis 20

(3) Disclosure of Sustainability and 21
Integrated Reporting
(4) Overall Findings According to the 8 22
elements of IR Framework
Chapter Six Discussion 26
Chapter Seven Conclusion 27
Chapter Eight References 29
Appendix A 31
Appendix B 33