A Thematic and Bibliometric Analysis of Trends and Future Directions in Integrated Reporting Research Landscape

Abstract

The study was conducted in the form of bibliometric analysis to analyse the trends and findings of the research landscape on integrated reporting. There were 679 Scopus indexed scholarly articles were published between 2012 to 2026 has been considered for the analysis for this study. SPAR-4 SLR framework has been adopted for the study and R-Biblioshiny is employed to generate and visualize the citation matrix and bibliometric network and VOSviewer is used for the additional analysis network. VOSviewer and additional analysis were also undertaken. The trend of publications on integrated reporting has significantly increased every year, especially in 2020, where 87 publications were made, hitting an annual publication growth rate of 8 percent. The results of the analysis revealed that the highest research productivity is concentrated in Australia, and Meditari Accountancy Research as the most productive journal with highest influence. An article with 650 global citations was published in Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal making it the most influential article. Based on the co-occurrence network, the intensity of research on integrated reporting were consistently high during 2022–2025 indicating sustained research activity and continued academic engagement. Italy ranks first with 7,000 citations, demonstrating the highest scholarly impact and Maroun W emerged as the most prolific author with 22 publications. This study provides useful insights for future integrated reporting. This study provides significant contribution for the researchers of Integrated reporting literature. In particular, the findings allow new researchers to quickly identify the theoretical underpinnings, as the leading researchers and documents identified in this study provide an entry point for new researchers.