Towards Integrated Reporting: Concepts, Elements and Principles 1 Cristiano Busco, Mark L. Frigo, Paolo Quattrone, and Angelo Riccaboni Abstract Integrated Reporting is a process that results in communicating—through the annual integrated report—value creation over time. The purpose of this chapter is to introduce the idea and the logic underpinning Integrated Reporting, shed light on the reasons that enabled the debate on Integrated Reporting to gain relevance over the recent years, and illustrate the features of the Consultation Draft released by the International Integrated Reporting Council on April 2013. In doing so, we focus our attention on a brief review of the fundamental concepts, content elements and guiding principles proposed within the Consul- tation Draft. We end the chapter with some reflections on the challenges ahead for Integrated Reporting, and on the potential impact of its adoption on the role of the management accounting function. C. Busco (*) School of Business and Economics, National University of Ireland, Galway, Ireland e-mail: cristiano.busco@nuigalway.ie M.L. Frigo Kellstadt Graduate School of Business & Driehaus College of Business, DePaul University, Chicago, IL, USA e-mail: mfrigo@depaul.edu P. Quattrone University of Edinburgh Business School, Edinburgh, UK e-mail: Paolo.Quattrone@ed.ac.uk A. Riccaboni Department of Business Studies and Law, University of Siena, Siena, Italy e-mail: riccaboni@unisi.it C. Busco et al. (eds.), Integrated Reporting, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-02168-3_1, # Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2013 3