Cover
Volume 7, Issue 3 (2026)

Published: September 25, 2026

Pages: 102-121

Research Article

Integrated reporting as an interactive space for epistemic trust: A comparative study between emerging markets listed in MSCI emerging markets and developed markets in the OECD on the dynamics of interaction between financial analysts and external auditors

Yaser S. Zenad 1 Ahmed S. Hasaballah 2
1Ministry of Higher Education & Scientific Research, Baghdad, Iraq
2Post-Graduate Institute for Accounting and Financial Studies, University of Baghdad, Baghdad, Iraq.
History
  • Received: November 18, 2025
  • Revised: November 1, 2026
  • Accepted: January 18, 2026
  • Available Online: September 25, 2026
DOI

https://doi.org/10.56967/ejfb2026752

Abstract

This study aims to examine the epistemic role of Integrated Reporting (IR) as an interactive platform for building trust between financial analysts and external auditors, through a comparative analysis between emerging markets listed in the MSCI Emerging Markets Index and developed markets under the OECD. Adopting a comparative empirical design, the study integrates structural quantitative modeling with interpretive reasoning to explore the dynamics linking Integrated Report Quality, Epistemic Trust, and Professional Evaluation Accuracy. The empirical findings reveal that Epistemic Trust acts as a full mediator between reporting quality and evaluation accuracy, indicating that the impact of high-quality integrated reports operates primarily through the trust they generate rather than through information volume alone. Comparative results show that the strength of these relationships depends on the institutional maturity of the market: developed markets exhibit stronger structural coherence and higher epistemic stability, whereas emerging markets remain in the process of developing dialogical trust. Overall, the study concludes that integrated reports achieve their true epistemic function only when read as communicative texts, blending disclosure with credibility, and metrics with meaning. This philosophical perspective reframes accounting as an ethical and epistemic dialogue, where numbers become a language of trust rather than mere measures of compliance.

Keywords

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