Integrated Reporting and the “Valuing” of Intellectual Capital: A Performative Perspective

The paper empirically explores how Intellectual Capital (IC) is mobilized within the context of integrated reporting. The analysis primarily relies on in-depth interviews with IR preparers of a global Oil & Gas Company that issues the IR since 2012 and is strongly involved in IC management. Drawing on a performative approach, we investigate in particular how the preparation of integrated reports (IR) triggers sensemaking processes on IC definition, classification and measurement. The case narrative reveals that IR preparers worked hard identifying the whole picture of how IC works, classifying IC components and putting IC in relation to value creation. Since the IR is intended to explain the sustainability of the company business model, all the efforts have been devoted to disentangle the IC role in creating “sustainable value”. The study enriches extant research on IC by offering case insights on the very process of “valuing” IC in a novel IR setting. It highlights that in IR contexts, IC is a fragile concept that serves the function preparers assign to the report