Il piano strategico e la sua integrazione con l’informativa periodica

The present paper aims at exploring strategic plans as key vehicles of forward-looking information in the Italian context, focusing on their role within corporate financial communication and their connection with periodic disclosure. The release of information regarding firm prospects is generally voluntary and highly appreciated by the market, so it is essential that such disclosure is continuous and provided in a form allowing investors to verify the achievement of corporate goals. The study is based on the idea that it is essential that forward-looking disclosure is integrated with reported results. In other words, integration is reached when investors are able to verify whether the previously disclosed strategic and financial targets have been hit. It allows users not only to interpret corporate disclosures but also to have an indication of the likely reliability of future financial forecasts. In such a perspective, the primary purpose of this paper is to explore the connection between strategic plans and periodic reports, with particular reference to continuity and comparability of information disclosed through different documents. Such issues seem of particular interest with concern to information needs of investors, who want to be able to verify in periodic reports whether firms are keeping their strategic plan promises. In pursuit of that objective the paper introduces an index to measure integration between forward-looking and historical disclosure, based on the comparison of data released in strategic plans and in the following annual and half-year reports. We posit that historical data directly comparable to forward-looking information contained in previous strategic plans is an indicator of integration between documents. We also investigate determinants of integration between forward-looking and historical disclosure, focusing on firm size, information asymmetries and proprietary costs.