The Relationship Between Multinational Enterprises and Territory in the Integrated Reporting

Multinational enterprises (MNEs) have long used both financial and sustainability reports to inform stakeholders of the different aspects of their business. Integrated Reporting, which has been developed as a result of shareholders’ increasing demands for information, is an innovative tool that communicates the social and financial aspects of business operations as well as reporting companies’ value creation processes over time. Integrated reporting is affected by the nature of a MNE’s stakeholders and influenced by their territorial origin, which raises aspects of business analysis that must be investigated in an Integrated Report. This chapter, which begins with a review of the existing literature on the aforementioned topics, explores the relationships that exist between business activities and the territory in which it operates, proposing that MNEs consider analysing specific points when formulating their Integrated Reports. The link between MNEs and the territory is analysed with a dual perspective: the local value added, and the MNEs’ relationships with the economic systems and governments of the country in which they operate. The authors believe that these two strongly interconnected factors underlie the social role that MNEs play also to the benefit of the territories in which they operate. In doing so, they qualify the contents and the use of the Integrated Report.