This study attempts to achieve two things. Firstly it contextualizes corporate citizenship drawing on scholarly, government, media, legal and business discourses which when viewed as a whole, reveals the importance of exchange as a central determinant in how all the major themes or subfields of corporate citizenship function and subsequently become valued within public discourse. Secondly, it reports on exploratory action research where I as a researcher occupied a central role in understanding and contributing towards how organizational settings socially construct and evolve corporate citizenship in real time through various exchange behaviour, drawing from four years field research within BP and its interactions with the external world. This research contributes to new knowledge by building a rare contextual understanding into how cultural change evolves over time within an organization, from its public face, through policy, down into employee and stakeholder reactions, including identifying the crucial role played by Cultural bridges’ in shifting entrenched organizational culture towards embracing new, more sustainable ways of doing business, and additionally how practitioners can legitimately act as a researcher in facilitating this process by assisting an organization to move from simple, transactional relationships to more sustainable integrated social, financial and environmental exchange between business and its broader context. Importantly, this research develops entirely new theoretical models for understanding the social application and commercial value of corporate citizenship to both business and society.

<p>Corporate Citizenship, Corporate Social Responsibility, socialt ansvarstagande, hållbarhet</p>

<p>Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is the act of taking social responsibility above what you need to do as a corporation. It can be of social, ethical or environmental character, for example an engagement in a local school or a voluntary reduction of pollution within the business buildings. There is no global standard concerning CSR, thus creating a definition gap where organisations are free to create their own definitions of the subject. This is in turn generating validity problems. Some companies are forced to behave as responsible corporate citizens by external pressure groups, for example by negative media attention. Others, though they are not as numerous, choose to implement CSR voluntary. An absolute model of CSR does not exist, since CSR is a concept with many different definitions. There are however two extreme schools that tries to explain CSR. Some argue that CSR is in the interest of all stakeholders, while others claim that CSR is a distraction from the shareholders interest. We have selected three models in order to give an overall picture. These will not however be used to validate the reality.</p><p>We argue in our thesis that CSR can be used as a tool within the area of reputation marketing. The purpose is therefore to research this argument with accurate research methods. We conducted a qualitative survey, with a company within the business to business service sector in Sweden, and compared it with a quantitative survey amongst the company’s clients, combined with existing theories concerning CSR as a concept. This is done in order to see whether CSR has made an impact upon the clients’ selection process, whilst choosing service providers.</p><p>Our findings show that there are other, more pressing interest areas that are important for the customers within this sector of business. But as pointed out by the service company itself, CSR is not doing any harm to the company, and in the long run, the overall trend is an increase in CSR-associated activities throughout the business environment.</p>

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is the act of taking social responsibility above what you need to do as a corporation. It can be of social, ethical or environmental character, for example an engagement in a local school or a voluntary reduction of pollution within the business buildings. There is no global standard concerning CSR, thus creating a definition gap where organisations are free to create their own definitions of the subject. This is in turn generating validity problems. Some companies are forced to behave as responsible corporate citizens by external pressure groups, for example by negative media attention. Others, though they are not as numerous, choose to implement CSR voluntary. An absolute model of CSR does not exist, since CSR is a concept with many different definitions. There are however two extreme schools that tries to explain CSR. Some argue that CSR is in the interest of all stakeholders, while others claim that CSR is a distraction from the shareholders interest. We have selected three models in order to give an overall picture. These will not however be used to validate the reality. We argue in our thesis that CSR can be used as a tool within the area of reputation marketing. The purpose is therefore to research this argument with accurate research methods. We conducted a qualitative survey, with a company within the business to business service sector in Sweden, and compared it with a quantitative survey amongst the company’s clients, combined with existing theories concerning CSR as a concept. This is done in order to see whether CSR has made an impact upon the clients’ selection process, whilst choosing service providers. Our findings show that there are other, more pressing interest areas that are important for the customers within this sector of business. But as pointed out by the service company itself, CSR is not doing any harm to the company, and in the long run, the overall trend is an increase in CSR-associated activities throughout the business environment.

Abstract The reason why organizations attract potential employees has been studied for a long time, excellent human resources are relatively limit under tight labor market. Therefore businesses compete with each other at recruiting these employees, but only to increase the attractiveness of organization itself ultimately keeping advantage of appeal of talented people. Talking about organizational attractiveness, corporate reputation and image first come to people¡¦s mind. The reputation index conduct by CommonWealth magazine annually influences corporate reputation and image of the public. As the development of globalization, businesses have to concern more while making an important decision.Such as ethical, legal and discretionary concerns, so called corporate citizenship. This study is intended to find relationship between corporate citizenship image, reputation and organizational attractiveness. 19 businesses are selected out form CommonWealth magazine 2006 corporate citizenship survey, 340 graduating master or bachelor students as responds. Results show that corporate citizenship image positively influence organizational attractiveness and there is a significance between high and low corporate citizenship image groups in reputation and organizational attractiveness.

Corporate Citizenship, Corporate Social Responsibility, socialt ansvarstagande, hållbarhet

Magister Administrationis - MAdmin / This study explores the relationship between companies and society with regards to companies’ social responsibilities. A number of concepts such as Corporate Citizenship (CC), Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Corporate Social Investment (CSI), articulate the role of companies in society. While these concepts are often used interchangeably, the main argument advanced in this study is that the concept of CC has more political currency than other concepts as CC confers duties and rights to companies in communities where they operate. In developing countries, CC is concerned with the role played by companies in administering the socio-economic rights of people living in communities where they operate. The study seeks to provide an overview of corporations’ obligations towards the socio-economic rights of people through CC, proposing the use of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) as a way to find a normative framework for CC.

Titel: Företagens sociala ansvarstagande och inverkan på kunders beteende- En kvantitativ studie på sparbankskunder Nivå: C-uppsats i ämnet företagsekonomi Författare: Axel Svensson och Robin Stolt Handledare: Agneta Sundström Examinator: Jens Eklinder Frick Datum: 2015 – juni Syfte: Syftet med studien är att förklara och testa om det finns ett positivt samband mellan kunders beteende och sparbankernas arbete med filantropi, strategisk filantropi och Corporate Citizenship. Ett delsyfte är att beskriva vilka specifika aspekter av dessa CSR-perspektiv som påverkar kundernas beteende i störst utsträckning. Metod: Studien utgår från en deduktiv hypotetisk forskningsansats och kvantitativ forskningsmetod. Data har samlats in genom enkäter vilka delats ut på tre olika sparbankskontor. Analys av data sker i programmet SPSS för att kunna undersöka sambandet mellan sparbankernas sociala ansvarstagande och dess inverkan på kundernas beteende. Resultat &amp; slutsats: Resultatet visar att positiv korrelation på en statistiskt säkerställd nivå föreligger mellan samtliga av våra testade CSR-perspektiv och kundernas beteende. Slutsatsen blir därmed att ett positivt samband mellan strategisk filantropi, filantropi samt Corporate Citizenship och kundernas beteende kan bekräftas. Förslag till fortsatt forskning: Studien visar att ett samband mellan sparbankernas sociala ansvarstagande och kundernas beteende föreligger. Vi rekommenderar att fler analyser genomförs som bekräftar att det är sparbankernas sociala ansvarstagande som påverkar kundernas beteende och inte tvärt om vilket kan göras genom en regressionsanalys. Uppsatsens bidrag: Studiens bidrag är att påvisa att det finns en positiv samverkan mellan kundernas beteende och sparbankernas sociala ansvarstagande. Nyckelord: CSR, Filantropi, Strategisk filantropi, Corporate Citizenship, Sparbanker. / Title: Corporate social responsibility and its impact on customer behavior -A quantitative study on the savings bank customers. Level: Final assignment for Bachelor Degree in Business Administration Author: Axel Svensson and Robin Stolt Supervisor: Agneta Sundström Examiner: Jens Eklinder Frick Date: 2015 – June Aim: The purpose of the study is to explain and test whether there is a positive correlation between customer behavior and savings banks' work with philanthropy, strategic philanthropy and corporate citizenship. A subsidiary aim is to describe the specific aspects of these CSR-perspectives that affect customer behavior to the greatest extent. Method: The study is based on a hypothetical deductive research approach and quantitative research methods. Data were collected through questionnaires which are distributed in three different savings bank offices to be analyzed in SPSS. Result &amp; Conclusions: The result shows that positive correlation at a statistically significant level exists between all of our tested CSR perspective and customer behavior. It is therefore concluded that a positive relationship between strategic philanthropy, philanthropy and Corporate Citizenship and customer behavior can be confirmed Suggestions for future research: We recommend that more analyzes are performed to confirm that there are savings banks' social responsibility that affect customer behavior, and not vice versa, which can be done through a regression analysis. Contribution of the thesis: The study's contribution is to demonstrate that there is a positive correlation between customer behavior and the savings banks´ social responsibility. Key words: CSR, Philanthropy, Strategic Philanthropy, Corporate Citizenship, Saving Banks

Magister Legum - LLM / Corporate governance is a principle that has had multiple evolving definitions. The Cadbury Report (also known as Financial Aspects of Corporate Governance) of 1992 is a report that sets out recommendations for best practice of a company board. Although the Cadbury Report was ideally formulated to apply to companies in the United Kingdom, its recommendations have formed the basis of many international codes over the years. It refers to corporate governance as the "system by which companies are directed and controlled". Solomons also explores the definitions of corporate governance in her book titled 'Corporate Governance and Accountability'. She acknowledges the existence of ‘narrow’ definitions and ‘broader’ definitions. Narrow definitions are more concerned with corporate accountability to a company’s shareholders. On the other hand, broader definitions seek to identify corporate accountability to shareholders and stakeholders. This definition encompasses a larger group of people, which include the society at large, future generations and the environment. For the purposes of this research, the broader definition will be utilised. Simply put, corporate governance refers to the practice in which companies are managed and controlled. This is achieved through balancing the interests of the many stakeholders of a company such as; employees, shareholders, suppliers, management, the government and many others. Corporate governance aims to create an environment whereby the company is managed in a way which promotes the interests of the stakeholders. These include, but are not limited to; the balance of powers in a company, compliance with laws and regulations, identification and management of potential risks, and ensuring accountability for its actions. In a nutshell, corporate governance can be viewed as the responsible leadership, governing and sustainability of a company. On the other hand, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) can be viewed as a branch of corporate governance and this shall be discussed further below. In many parts of the world, CSR functions as a voluntary code of conduct. This means that corporate entities are usually guided by a set of principles of good intent. Corporate entities are expected to self-regulate their affairs with their social effects in mind. Some scholars strongly believe that the voluntary nature of CSR is its very essence. It is a value that has to be realized through free will and philanthropy. However on the other hand, other scholars believe that this flexibility can be misused.

In the competitive world of manufacturing, companies are often searching for new ways to improve their process, customer satisfaction and stay ahead in the game with their competitors. Reverse logistics has been considered a strategy to bring these things to life for the past decade or so. This thesis work tries to shed some light on the basics of reverse logistics and how reverse logistics can be used as a management strategy. This paper points out the fundamentals of reverse logistics and looks into what kind of decisions today’s logistics managers have to take on a daily basis for the improvement of their logistics model. A growing concern has been developing to control rising global pollution, this paper also brings out some of the effects of reverse logistics decisions on the environment and vice versa. The thesis starts out by compiling the works of researchers and logistics experts in the field of logistics in the theoretical background section. Through a survey conducted in a few manufacturing firms in India, a small picture of the extent to which reverse logistics has penetrated the manufacturing world has been drawn.