Feminist Approach to Integrated Reporting: Theory of the Firm and Practice in Dialogue

This paper contributes to maintain active the debate in applying Feminist Approach to understand the theory of the firm underlining Integrated Reporting in different lens of capitalism. The work is useful to accounting scholars, standard setters and the general public, because there are practical implications especially important to the present development of the sustainability reporting scenery. The business theory underlying the IR framework remain clearly still a capitalist theory, but if in some cases organizational changes are activated, and therefore we are moving towards small changes in the corporate culture. This process can leave room for an area to include reflections on a different theory that can be generated incidentally, also starting from a model structured in itself and oriented towards the creation of value for investors. Finally, we think that by keeping the debate alive we can help sow a seed to improve the potential of accounting and accountability (social, environmental, sustainable). The research design is grounded on Feminist approach literature in economics and accounting. After literature analysis set of keywords are analyzed to identify the interpretative paradigms of the firm that can be associated with the masculine and feminine. The analysis use NVivo 12 and is addressed to the integrated reports released by health and pharmaceutical companies, that have been selected among the leading practices included in the IR examples website (IIRC Database as of May 11, 2021). This choice is due to investigate one of the most sensitive industries during the Covid-19 pandemic.