Problem: Corporate social responsibility is said to result in strategic and reputational benefits, however, broadcasting it publicly has been proven to be a delicate matter. While stakeholders expect companies to engage in CSR, they do not appreciate if companies communicate their CSR-activities too loudly. Prior research instead suggests that communicating too extensively could cause skepticism from stakeholders. Purpose: This thesis is set to investigate how companies view and handle the challenge of communicating their good deeds, in the specific context of cross-sector collaborations, and how companies balance the need to increase awareness of their social engagements with the risk of inducing skepticism. Method: Primary data has been collected from semi-structured interviews within six case companies from different industries. Conclusion: Our results show that skepticism per se was not perceived as a problem – one reason could be that most companies chose to avoid communicating extensively. While all companies argued for the importance of doing rather than talking, controversial companies in particular expressed an aversion towards bragging about their collaborations. A difference between controversial and neutral industries could be seen in the way they valued communication. Having the right level of communication, demonstrating authenticity by linking cross-sector collaborations to company characteristics, together with the choice of partners and communicating “through” NPOs were seen as important aspects that could help companies to find the balance.

Abstract Title: Sponsorship of grassroots- and youth football teams: A qualitative study from the sponsors’ perspective. Authors: David Arvidsson and Christoffer Rex Hansen Charles. Supervisor: Hèléne Laurell. Level: Bachelor thesis in marketing (15 Swedish credits), Spring 2016. Keywords: Sponsorship, Sport sponsorship, Local sponsorship, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), Football,Grassroots, Effectiveness measurement. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to increase the understanding of sponsoring grassroots- and youth football teams. Theoretical framework: The theoretical framework begins with theory regarding sponsorship. CSR and its importance are also discussed. A link between sponsorship and CSR is brought forward at the end of this chapter. Methodology: A deductive approach and a qualitative method have been used in order to get a more detailed, deeper and descriptive explanation of the chosen subject. Empirical framework: The empirical framework was collected through personal interviews with respondents from five different companies. The respondents were the ones responsible for the work with sponsorship at each respective company. Conclusion: Companies are involved in the sponsoring of grassroots- and youth football teams in order to be seen as good citizens. It is also seen as a brand building activity and away to build relationships. A link between CSR and sponsorship can be done and sponsorship can be used as a tool to communicate companies’ CSR-initiatives. Finally, are the effects from sponsorship not measured due to the difficulties in this process, however, methods for this purpose do exist, such as customer surveys.

This qualitative study aims to contribute to the research field on corporate sustainability (CS) in small and medium-sized enterprise (SMEs), in hopes of helping policymakers better understand the circumstances for Swedish SMEs and how they work with CS. Empirical data about motivations behind working with CS, implementation of CS activities, and effects of CS work were collected through in-depth interviews with 18 company representatives. The major reason for motivation was found to be personal interest and commitment to these kind of practices, followed by strengthening the competitiveness, marketing, initiative from management and board, and profitability aspects. The implementation process is often informal in nature with concrete measures and activities rather than formal policies and strategies, although a few of the companies make use of tools such as environmental management systems. How the companies communicate their CS work differs and the response from stakeholders varies too. Lastly, profitability was found to be an important effect for some, while others more heavily emphasize the personal satisfaction from doing the right thing and being sustainable. The social effects were mostly improved working conditions and more engagement from stakeholders, while the environmental impact was understood to mostly concern a decrease in consumption of finite resources, and a more efficient use of material and energy. Suggestions for improving CS work in Swedish SMEs are increased support and encouragement from the government, and more education and information about what companies can do and how they can do it with appropriate tools. Concluding, CS in Swedish SMEs must be studied further to gain a more comprehensive picture of how to support those SMEs already working with CS and those in the path of transitioning towards a more sustainable development.

This thesis addresses corporate approaches to CSR stakeholder engagement in the pharmaceutical industry in the UK and Germany. Its objective is to undertake mainly exploratory qualitative research to investigate how the selected sample manages CSR. The data was primarily accessed and collected from senior executives within major pharmaceutical companies. Multiple research methods were employed to gather rich new empirical evidence which focuses on the CSR practices and perceptions of CSR managers in both countries. To examine how this 'sensitive' sector responds to what could be termed the 'CSR Challenge', a critical realist perspective and six codes were chosen to map the practices and to compare similarities and differences between the two countries. This research contributes to the academic literature in this field by filling significant gaps in an area which was previously under-investigated. Ultimately, the findings are employed to examine a prespecified framework which was originally developed by the author based on secondary data in separate research. Overall, the results inform, re-examine, and improve this recently published framework. The updated explanatory framework which results from the research is the main conceptual contribution of the thesis. It serves as a management tool which includes the contextual factors which influence decision-makers' practices and perceptions portrayed as a set of inter-related management steps. This new conceptualisation is designed to be of practical use for decision-makers when managing their stakeholder engagement activities. As a result, this research is essentially applied and normative in nature. In addition, this work presents an original contribution to the literature in its field which should be of interest to academics.

The development of communication technology has also created new structures, able to challenge the traditional power roles of the communicative process. Social media have become a fruitful arena of this change due to their users having the possibility to respond to the producers’ messages. Thus, the traditional lineal structure turns to an interactional one and consequently, the lines become blurred between the roles of the dominant and dominated as assumed by the senders/producers and the receivers respectively. Controversial issues shed light on this ‘battle for power’, such as the sustainability actions and reporting of Zara and H&M. These companies are the leaders of the fast fashion industry; one of the most ‘unsustainable’ fields. Through a critical discourse analysis of the posts that the companies launch on their Facebook-sponsored accounts as well as the comments related to sustainability that they obtain from their users, the communicative process occurring in social media can be assessed. The aim of this analysis is to provide an insight into how the communicative process between sender and receiver in social media creates public opinion and affects the development of sustainability discourse. It has been shown that users have found in social media a powerful tool to challenge the companies’ power: they can comment on the informative product in question. Also the users have taken the sustainability discourse as the required ‘object’ when questioning a product’s reliability. The latter is in some way another means with which to challenge the companies’ power.

<p>This study takes a mixed-method, micro-approach to understanding the internal sensemaking and understanding of employee-directed CSR given the potentially changing nature of such efforts. In particular, this study explores how organizational members (i.e., employees) construct knowledge (via their sensemaking) of organizational CSR and primarily those employee-focused.I take a communicative and discursive approach in viewing CSR as a socially constructed phenomenon (Schultz, Castello, & Morsing, 2013) and (social) movement within organizations (Georgallis, 2017), and thus contextual and unique to organizational sites. Findings revealed D/discourses of CSR from employee perceptions at the micro level and reflected in macro level document messaging. Through this, I found various paradoxes of CSR from the expectations versus reality of what it means for organizations to be “responsible.” At the individual level, employee sensemaking around CSR came to light—particularly in highlighting how these stakeholders rationalize, perceive, and identify with such efforts, especially those targeting or benefiting employees. In presenting a multi-method study, this dissertation contributes to research on the micro-foundations and limited internal perspective of CSR and provides important pragmatic implications given the timely and relevant nature of this work.</p>

Abstract -   Background: Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been a concept related to corporations for decades and is still highly relevant. The concept has been developed throughout the years, resulting in an extensive concept. This thesis, however, defines CSR as a corporation’s willingness, engagement and ability to participate in societal objectives.   Purpose: The purpose of this master thesis is to analyse business management of CSR. More specifically, in the context of MNEs subsidiaries implementation and management of CSR in practice relating to services, retailing and manufacturing industries.     Method: A qualitative multiple case study was conducted in order to carry out the purpose. The empirical data was collected by doing 14 semi-structured interviews from five MNEs in three different industries.    Findings: Common findings in all five MNEs are, a global management team in all organizations, that the organizational goal is in line with the organizational standard and that all MNEs encounter a local demand. Moreover, all five MNEs were found to measure, track and evaluate their processes by using one or a couple evaluation methods. Lastly, it was clear that all responsibilities within Carroll's pyramid of CSR were valued within the participating MNEs and that CSR is believed to become increasingly more important in the future.    Conclusion: The final conclusion of this thesis is that the importance of CSR will increase in the future for MNEs and its subsidiaries based on the current market situation. Furthermore, MNEs tend to manage and implement CSR in subsidiaries based on a global framework. The amount of local adaptation differs between industries and MNEs, however, if the CAGE distance is bigger the local adaptation tends to be bigger. / Sammanfattning -   Bakgrund: CSR har varit ett koncept förknippat med företag i årtionden och det är fortfarande mycket relevant. CSR har utvecklats genom åren, vilket har resulterat i ett brett koncept. I denna avhandling definieras CSR som företagens vilja, engagemang och förmåga att delta i mål som gynnar samhället.   Syfte: Syftet med denna magisteruppsats är att analysera företagsledningen av CSR. Närmare bestämt i kontexten av multinationella företags dotterbolags utförande och förvaltning av CSR i praktiken, i relation till företag inom, tjänste-, återförsäljnings och tillverkningsindustrin.   Metod: Flera kvalitativa fallstudier har utförts för att uppfylla syftet med denna uppsats. Empirin är baserad på 14 semistrukturerade intervjuer med fem multinationella företag i tre olika industrier.   Resultat: De gemensamma resultaten för alla fem deltagande multinationella företagen är, ett globalt ledarskapsteam i sin verksamhet, att verksamhetsmålet är i linje med organisationens standard och att de alla upplever en lokal efterfrågan. Vidare fann man att alla fem multinationella företagen mäter, spårar och utvärderar sina processer genom att använda ett eller ett par utvärderingsmetoder. Slutligen var det tydligt att alla ansvarsområden inom Carroll´s CSR-pyramid värderades inom de deltagande företagen och att de alla tror att CSR kommer att bli allt viktigare i framtiden.     Slutsats: Slutsatsen i denna avhandling är att CSR kommer att öka i framtiden för multinationella företag och dess dotterbolag baserat på den nuvarande marknadssituationen. Dessutom tenderar multinationella företag att hantera och genomföra CSR i dotterbolag baserat på en global ram. Mängden lokal anpassning skiljer sig mellan branscher och multinationella företag, om CAGE-avståndet är större tenderar den lokala anpassningen att vara större.

Sammanfattning Titel: Prestationsmätning av Corporate social responsibility (CSR) för den interna styrningen – En kvalitativ studie Nivå: Examensarbete på grundnivå (kandidatexamen) i ämnet företagsekonomi Författare: Josefine Walfridsson och Iman Yassin Handledare: Tomas Källquist och Pär Vilhelmson Datum: 2019 - januari Syfte: Syftet är att skapa förståelse för hur verksamheter arbetar med att föra in CSR i sina interna prestationsmätningar. Metod: Studien utgår från en hermeneutisk forskningstradition med en abduktiv ansats. Den teoretiska referensramen har byggts upp utifrån tidigare forskning. Det empiriska materialet har samlats in utifrån tio kvalitativa semistrukturerade intervjuer. Både teorin och empirin diskuteras sedan i en tematisk analys som följs av studiens resultat och bidrag. Resultat: Prestationsmätningar av CSR används inte genomtänkt för den interna styrningen utan främst för att kunna rapportera CSR-prestationer externt som ett sätt att skapa transparens mot externa intressenter. Studien har visat att prestationsmätningar av CSR används för den interna styrningen i ett fåtal verksamheter men begränsat i majoriteten av de studerade verksamheterna. Studiens bidrag: Studien bidrar med praktisk insikt kring prestationsmätningar av CSR i den interna styrningen, där det visar sig att fokus främst ligger på extern rapportering i praktiken. Den tidigare forskningen kring ämnet präglas av normativa studier. Där prestationsmätningar av CSR tycks gynna verksamheters interna styrning. En del tidigare forskningen indikerar att verksamheters fokus kring prestationsmätningar av CSR ligger på extern rapportering, vilket vår empiriska studie stödjer. Förslag till vidare forskning: Förslag till vidare forskning är att göra flera kvaliativa studier kring prestationsmätningar av CSR i den interna styrningen eftersom det finns begränsat med studier inom området. Ett annat förslag är att forska kring hur verksamheter arbetar med att föra in CSR i sitt prestationsmätningssystem, som den tidigare forskningen benämner som SPMS. Nyckelord: Performance measurement, Corporate social responsibility (CSR), Management accounting, Sustainability performance measurement system (SPMS) / Abstract Title: Performance measurement of Corporate social responsibility (CSR) for internal control – A qualitative study Level: Final assignment for Bachelor Degree in Business Administration Authors: Josefine Walfridsson and Iman Yassin Supervisor: Tomas Källquist and Pär Vilhelmson Date: 2019 – January   Aim: The aim of this study is to create an understanding of how operations are working to introduce CSR into their internal performance measurements. Method: The study is based on a hermenuetic research tradtition with an abductive approach. The theoretical framework has been built based on previous research. The empirical material has been collected based on ten qualitative semi-structured interviews. Both the theory and the empirics are then discussed in a thematic analysis that led to the study's results and contributions.   Results: Performance measurement of CSR is not used for management accounting purpose, but is primarily used for external reporting of CSR performance as a way of creating transparency towards external stakeholders. The study has indicated that performance measurement of CSR is used for management accounting purpose in few operations but limited in the majority of the operations studied.   Contribution of the thesis: The study contributes with practical insight into the performance measurements of CSR in operations management accounting, where it turns out that focus is mainly on external reporting in practice. The previous research on the subject is characterized by normative studies. Where performance measurements of CSR is described as very useful in the management accounting of operations. Furthermore the previous research indicates that performance measurements of CSR in operations mainly focus on external reporting, which our empirical study supports.   Suggestions for future research: Suggestions for future research is to do more empirical studies on performance measurements of CSR in the management accounting of operations, since there is few studies made in this area. Another suggestion is to do research in how operations work to bring CSR into their performance measurement system, as in the previous research is termed SPMS. Keywords: Performance measurement, Corporate social responsibility (CSR), Management accounting, Sustainability performance measurement system (SPMS)

Idén om Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) framträdde redan på tidigt 1900-tal och har sedan dess spridits från företagsvärlden till sportvärlden. Den svenska sportrörelsen har länge präglats av en principiell amatörism och har fokus på inneboende värden som gemenskap, integration, fairplay, laganda, rörelse och välbefinnande, varför denna studie vill undersöka vad CSR formas till inom organisationer som redan borde adressera sådana frågor. Följaktligen är syftet med denna studie att utforska hur CSR har tagits emot och översatts i sportorganisationer genom att studera hur CSR har implementerats och utvecklats inom svenska ishockeyklubbar. Fallstudier genomfördes med fyra klubbar i Svenska Hockeyligan (SHL). Resultatet av studien visade att de fyra ishockeyklubbarna hade fokuserat sitt CSR-arbete på ett sätt som kan kopplas till de inneboende värdena. CSR har vidare formats till ett verktyg för idrottssponsring och ett sätt att legitimera samhällsstöd. Följaktligen har studien hjälpt till att fylla det gap som inom forskningen finns inom dels CSR-utveckling och dels CSR i svenskt kontext.

I en globaliserad värld, där multinationella företag uppkommer dagligen, blir det allt viktigare för företag att vara sociala medborgare. Den ökande globaliseringen, samt ett utvecklat informationssamhälle, medför att företag blivit alltmer transparenta för omvärlden. Forskning har visat att företags sociala ansvar, kommer att ha ännu större inverkan på verksamheten i framtiden. Därmed är det viktigt att företag har väl fungerande rutiner, för hur de skall hantera den här typen av arbete. I nuläget använder sig många organisationer av CSR som ett slags skydd mot allmänhetens missnöje, och utnyttjar inte konceptet till dess fulla potential. Det framgår i vår undersökning av Kappahl, att CSR-arbete kan skapa synergieffekter längs med värdekedjan. Med stöd av erkända teorier kan vi i vår forskning påvisa att så är fallet inom mode/textilbranschen. Vi kan då med största säkerhet påstå att CSR- konceptet har potential att bli ekonomiskt lönsamt om det hanteras på ett korrekt sätt. Vår forskning har påvisat att det är väldigt viktigt att inledningsvis implementera CSR centralt i organisationen, och först därefter låta det grena ut i resten av värdekedjan. Vi har genom vår forskning utvecklat en modell för att åskådligöra sambandet, genom att med Kappahl som exempel illustrera det. Resultatet av vår forskning visar att CSR måste tas på allvar av företag världen över. En orsak till att det ännu inte har skett, är att begreppet fortfarande är för stort och omfattande. Vi vill se att framtida forskning skall se över möjligheten att utveckla branschspecifika recept, såsom vi försökt med mode/textilbranschen.