Improving business model disclosure in the annual report : insights from an interventionist research project

Responding to the calls for empirical research on the extent and nature of business model reporting, this paper has the purpose to assess the quality of business model disclosure. To accomplish this purpose, the study takes advantage of an interventionist research project that was conducted in an Italian listed company operating in the information technology industry to investigate how the business model was disclosed in the annual report and provide feedback to support possible changes. The study uses a framework of analysis that helped to assess the quality of business model disclosure in terms of three attributes: amount, spread and connectivity. The annual report of two consecutive fiscal years was analyzed. The study mainly shows that the measurement and assessment of BM disclosure quality can facilitate its improvement.

The analysis enabled meaningful insights on BM's quality to emerge, delivering evidence on the relative importance, coverage and interconnections of BM's disclosed components. Further, the interventionist approach helped to shape managers' view on how to tackle disclosure issues and offer more effective communication of the BM according to the company purposes. [Publisher's text].