The value relevance of digitalization disclosure in integrated reports: A South African perspective

The inevitable disruptions in the Fourth Industrial Revolution necessitates that companies provide investors with digitalization disclosure in integrated reports. This paper investigated whether digitalization disclosure in integrated reports affects the share prices of South African listed companies. The relationship between digitalization disclosure and share prices is examined using the Ohlson (1995) Model through the application of panel data. A new proxy for the “other information” variable in the Ohlson (1995) Model was created for digitalization disclosure by developing a disclosure index to measure the scope of digitalization disclosure in integrated reports. The disclosure index was incorporated into a new text analysis software named the Fourth Industrial Revolution Disclosure Analysis Tool (4IRDAT), which uses algorithms based on natural language processing techniques to facilitate the content analysis of digitalization disclosure in integrated reports. Two scenarios were evaluated: including loss-making companies and excluding loss-making companies. The sample size, including loss-making companies and excluding loss-making companies, was 90 (270 observations) and 72 (216 observations), respectively, for three years from 2018 to 2020. It was established that there was an increase in digitalization disclosure over three years. The results indicated that digitalization disclosure had yet to be incorporated in the share price of South African listed companies for both scenarios. This study is indispensable to regulators, practitioners, standard setters, and academics because it provides empirical evidence on the value relevance of digitalization disclosure in integrated reports. This area has not been interrogated in a South African context.