Corporate narrative reporting on Industry 4.0 technologies: does governance matter?

Purpose: We aim to provide early evidence on corporate transformation towards Industry 4.0 in the UK, particularly by examining the effect of corporate governance on the narrative reporting of corporate transformation towards Industry 4.0 (CTTI4).

Methodology: We analyse all UK FTSE All-share non-financial firms that have published their annual reports for the period of 2013- 2018. We use computerised textual analysis to measure the level of corporate reporting on Industry 4.0 for 1001 firm-year observations. We used different regression models to test our research hypotheses.

Findings: Our findings contribute to the growing literature on business model transformation in UK companies towards the I4.0 strategy. The findings show that the level of reporting on CTTI4 is improving over the sample period and varies between industries. We also find that better governance quality enhances the level of reporting on CTTI4.

Implications: The findings of this study inform decision-makers and regulators about factors driving UK companies to report information about their actionable strategies to direct I4.0 endeavours.

Originality: Our paper makes an important and novel contribution to corporate disclosure literature. So far as we know, it is the only paper to examine the impact of corporate governance on corporate narrative reporting on industry 4.0 technologies. Moreover, it is the first paper to show that the quality of corporate governance adds value to this strategic type of corporate disclosure.