| Abstract: | In the thesis, we focused on integrated reporting and how it affects organizations, their employees, and stakeholders. It includes an overview of the legal framework for the preparation of annual reports, their content, the financial and non-financial parts of the annual report, and the (un)ethical aspects of their preparation. The purpose of researching the chosen topic was to collect and analyze available information from studies on integrated annual reporting by organizations and critically examine the impact of integrated reporting on users' trust in reporting. We mainly focused on the non-financial part of organizational reporting. A need emerged for organizations to disclose more non-financial information, and in January 2023, the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) came into effect, replacing the previously valid Non-Financial Reporting Directive (NFRD), to unify this reporting. The CSRD directive and ESG standards aim to combat the climate crisis by transforming the EU into a modern, resource-efficient, and competitive economy with net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. This has introduced new reporting requirements for organizations and changed the way and content of what they report. For the environmental, social, and governance aspects, we explored how they affect organizations and their stakeholders. From articles, we gathered information and reported on the impacts and expected effects of sustainable reporting. Based on the review of the findings, we evaluated the Hypothesis H1: Most researchers report positive effects of integrated reporting on stakeholder trust, and we confirmed it. When organizations publish annual reports, they are generally accessible to everyone. Well-prepared annual reports can serve as a promotional tool for organizations, attracting investors, new clients, and other stakeholders. For users of the annual report to develop their own opinion about its content, they need critical thinking skills. The theoretical background of critical thinking and its skills were presented in the chapter on critical thinking in connection with integrated reporting. In the summary, we gathered findings related to reporting practices in organizations, the impact of implementing ESG standards in organizations, and evaluated the hypothesis. |
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