Business Administration (PhD) / Διοίκηση Επιχειρήσεων (PhD)

The current information era calls for a stakeholder approach when preparing financial statements. This enhances the usefulness of financial statements that may be relevant to a variety of stakeholders. The present study involves a mixed method research in Cyprus aiming to establish which themes (out of 32 in total) corporate intermediate stakeholders wish to include in the financial statements, as part of a broader economic evaluation. At the same time, the company discloses its corporate identity to its stakeholders (such as its customers), as part of an effort to sustain its competitive advantages. The qualitative research reveals different transferability depending on the type of stakeholder, which vary from 65% to 90%. Most of the variables are transferable, and indeed stakeholders require a plethora of information for their decision-making purposes, ranging from organization behavior to management and corporate strategy. However, certain interviewees distorted the sample. In addition, the quantitative research supports, to a great extent, the results of the qualitative analysis, and the researcher obtained a strong R Square in all four stakeholders. For customers 1, he obtained an R2 of 0.425 (16 predictors), for customers 2 an R2 of 0.042 (1 predictor), for suppliers an R2 of 0.400 (11 Predictors), for employees 1 an R2 of 0.284 (16 predictors), for employees 2 an R2 of 0.367 (4 predictors), and for shareholders an R2 of 0.473 (15 predictors). Most of the variables are valid as they produce a positive standardized beta coefficient value. Therefore, stakeholders do require a plethora of business information for their decisionmaking purposes. In-line with the above, the author’s contribution to science is the multistakeholder approach in developing financial statements (multi-stakeholder corporate evaluation). This approach is based on the Expanded Balanced Scorecard model and the Integrated Reporting framework (of the EU Directive on the provisions of non-quantitative information). In addition, the author’s contribution to science is the additional qualitative information required to supplement the financial statements, as extracted from this research, as well as an additional opinion paragraph in the auditors’ report.