Integrated reporting as organisational practice: a case study from Japan

Purpose This study examines how integrated reporting (<IR>) is enacted as an organisational practice. Moving beyond outcome-oriented evaluations, it investigates how <IR> unfolds in everyday work and how its situated enactment enables, constrains or reshapes possibilities for change. Design/methodology/approach We leverage Schatzki's (2002) theory of social practices to analyse how activities are organised by rules, practical understandings, general understandings and teleoaffective structures. An in-depth case study of a Japan-based company was undertaken, involving participant observation, semi-structured interviews, informal conversations and archival data. Data were collected through longitudinal fieldwork from 2019 to 2022. Findings <IR> enactment is not a straightforward process of implementing prescribed practices or outcome delivery, but an unfolding negotiation shaped by embedded organisational arrangements. What gets taken up – or set aside – depends less on formal design or normative expectations than on what is considered meaningful or actionable in the context of ongoing routines. These enactments are often routinised within existing organisational arrangement, limiting the scope for strategic debate and substantive change. Practical implications The findings highlight that the integration of sustainability into organisational practices depends not only on formal mandates or tools but on how reporting is negotiated and sustained in everyday work. Recognising this can help policymakers and standard setters design disclosure frameworks that better align regulatory ambitions with organisational realities and help organisations use reporting as a space for reflection rather than mere compliance. Originality/value Combining ethnographic approaches with a practice-theoretical perspective, this study contributes to practice-based accounting research by shifting attention from change outcomes to the situated enactment of reporting practices. It offers a processual understanding of how tensions between sustainability aspirations and organisational arrangements are negotiated in practice.