Understanding integrated reporting and the United Nations sustainable development goals: an accounting educational case

Despite a consensus on the urgency of achieving the United Nations (UN) sustainable development goals (SDGs) and global transformational development, academic scholarship has been slow to incorporate SDG-related challenges and university curricula tend to remain traditional and resistant to change within the accounting discipline. Based on this educational issue, this paper presents a case on teaching integrated reporting (IR), as an example of incorporating the SDGs into accounting modules. It reviews the previous literature on and posits the appropriateness of as a topic to be taught for incorporating the SDGs into an accounting module. Then, the teaching design is discussed in detail, including the design of teaching activities, assignment questions and feedback methods, the implementation and results of the activities, the analysis of student feedback, and further reflections on areas for improvement. This paper inspires university lecturers to design and implement new SDG-related courses/modules/components in accounting or other disciplines. It also contributes to the university accounting/business curriculum and novel pedagogical practices debate in the literature.