Private sector communication of non-financial information : critical insight into investor expectation

Abstract

Sustainability has become one of the key issues facing today’s organisations. Poor risk management, excessive compensation and greed have opened the behaviour of organisations to the eyes of the world and have called in corporate disclosures to date. While an increase of disclosure in non-financial reports has been noted, there is little evidence to suggest that the investment community is using this information to make informed investment decisions. The goal of this research was to draw attention to the importance of alignment of non-financial information between organisations and the investment community, in order to ultimately encourage responsible investment. This was done by way of a three-phase endeavor that delivered: • A best-practice framework for the communication of non-financial performance by organisations • An assessment of six South African organisations and their communication of non-financial information, specifically with their investment community • An assessment of six investment firms’ perceptions and expectations of non-financial performance communication in South Africa The study highlighted the importance of engaging the investor community in order to understand their expectation of non-financial performance information, thus rendering non-financial reports useful to the investment community and progressing the responsible investment movement in South Africa. Copyright