In modern times environmental matters have increased in importance and are being discussed more frequently, and especially in relation with company activity. One way of complying with modern standards for companies is to work with environmental management systems, and it has become quite normal for companies to certify their environmental management systems to a recognized environmental certification. Continuing on this, the purpose of our thesis is to gain a deeper understanding regarding and ultimately assess why it is that companies seek environmental certification. Additionally, we have developed a sub-purpose which is designed to help us gain a deeper understanding regarding the main purpose in a practical context. We will look at 5 production companies in Umeå that have implemented an environmental certification, specifically ISO 14001, and try to understand the reasoning behind choosing to become certified. We will also examine the environmental effectiveness of an ISO 14001 certified environmental management system. We have conducted a comparative case study with these 5 companies in Umeå. Our method of collecting primary data was to interview the companies with a qualitative semi-structured interviewing technique. In the empirical part of the thesis we focused on practically testing the theoretical material. Furthermore, we also analyzed secondary data received from the companies' websites and directly from the interviewees in order to assess the effectiveness of an ISO 14001 certified environmental management system in financial and environmental terms. Regarding the theoretical framework, we focus on two theories referred to as the legitimacy theory and the stakeholder theory, and these theories are used to explain organizational behavior. We also have theoretical material explaining the positives and negatives of environmental management systems, and also ISO 14001 certification and the reasons why companies can benefit from such certification. Our findings suggest that the matter of legitimacy, in combination with the stakeholder theory, affected all of the companies in one way or another when choosing to seek environmental certification. In what ways the companies were affected differed even though there were many similarities across the companies regarding their reasoning to become ISO 14001 certified. We also found that, despite collecting a lot of hard data illustrating the companies' environmental performance over recent years, it was difficult to directly link any improvements to ISO 14001. It was, however, stated that ISO 14001 certification for the environmental management systems did improve the overall quality and environmental focus and performance, but it is still difficult to assess this with much accuracy and certainty due to many contributing factors.

Although studies in scholarly journals suggest that corporate philanthropic activities may enhance corporate reputation, little systematic research on this effect exists. In fact, our knowledge of consumer responses to corporate philanthropic initiatives is limited. While corporate success relies on the support of customers, business benefits from corporate generosity - such as improved corporate reputation - are lacking. This dissertation investigates consumer perceptions of corporate philanthropy. Specifically, it explores the congruence among consumer perceptions of different philanthropic cause types, their geographical deployment, and the company-cause fit. Moreover, it aims to provide an understanding of the link between corporate philanthropy and corporate reputation by highlighting the role of ethnocentrism in shaping this relationship. The empirical research draws on balance theory, the sociological concept of ethnocentrism, and cultural dimensions to provide a framework and model for the relationship between consumer Attitudes toward Corporate Philanthropy and Customer-based Corporate Reputation. I employ three methodological approaches (interpretive, experimental, and survey-based) to investigate three sets of research questions. Firstly, an exploratory design is employed to uncover consumer and corporate perceptions of corporate philanthropy. Secondly, an experimental design is used to shed light on consumer evaluations of different corporate philanthropic causes and their dimensions by testing three propositions. Finally, a survey design is applied to test six hypotheses, and consequently to provide an understanding of the link between corporate philanthropy and corporate reputation in two distinct cultural contexts. The latter consists of two large-scale surveys in which two leading telecommunication companies, one in Austria and one in Egypt, are examined. Data is analyzed by applying qualitative computing, nonparametric tests, regression analyses, and structural equation modeling. Three consumer views emerge from the interviews: egoistic, altruistic, and pragmatic. The corporate view, in contrast, is largely of strategic nature (i.e. gaining sustainable competitive advantage by means of responsible management). Some weak ethnocentric tendencies appear in terms of consumer preferences for domestic philanthropic support as opposed to distant support. Furthermore, findings point toward congruence in the perceived importance of social causes by consumers, with health-related causes favored most and art-related causes least. The geographical focus of corporate philanthropy (i.e. domestic versus distant) is perceived differently for the education-related cause across all seven industries examined in the experiment. For other causes, however, such as health- or environment-related causes, a significant difference is found in the oil and consulting industries, respectively. This indicates that consumers' evaluation of corporate philanthropic activities is partially dependent on the geographical focus. Additionally, results confirm the existence of weak industry-specific preferences. The support of causes with a close fit to the core business is favored by consumers unless another cause type (less industry-related) is perceived as more worthy of support. In terms of corporate reputation, corporate philanthropy has a small to medium impact on perceptions of the corporation in Egypt and Austria, respectively, varying by respondent subgroup. Consumer Ethnocentrism impacts upon Attitude toward Corporate Philanthropy negatively in Egypt, while in Austria, the absence of Consumer Ethnocentrism moderates the relationship between Attitude toward Corporate Philanthropy and Customer-based Corporate Reputation positively and more strongly than moderate Consumer Ethnocentrism. The research presented in this dissertation advances the extant literature in three important ways. First, it focuses on a relatively neglected area of corporate social responsibility, namely corporate philanthropy - an unconditional contribution by a corporation to a social cause. Second, it embraces corporate reputation as a multidimensional construct (as opposed to a unidimensional construct) and thus contributes to the relatively few studies within reputation measurement that exclusively address the consumer stakeholder group (e.g. Walsh et al. 2009). Furthermore, to best of my knowledge, no scholarly research has examined the relationship between corporate philanthropy and Customer-based Corporate Reputation to date. Third, by examining real customers and real-life companies, this work aims to overcome the limitations of the laboratory settings that have traditionally been preferred in this area of research. For managers, the findings offer valuable consumer insights into corporate philanthropy and indicate strategies to improve business outcomes from philanthropic activities. Suggestions for how corporate philanthropic activities should best be communicated through various channels are provided. In this context, the role of word-of-mouth and social media in disseminating philanthropic information is discussed. (author's abstract)

This thesis discusses environmental partnerships, in which an NGO and corporation collaborate to address mutual goals. I begin by discussing the goals of environmental partnerships before reviewing a brief history of these partnerships, the current state of the partnerships landscape, and partnership trends across industries and within NGOs. Next, I examine the potential benefits and drawbacks to partnering for both public and private participants. Finally, strategies for corporations, NGOs, research institutes, academia, and government to enable the creation and maintenance of successful partnerships are proposed to address critical environmental issues in the absence of effective regulation.

This paper studies the link between Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and operating performance of companies between two countries in the same industry. This study analyze the relationship between financial performance indicators ROE (return on equity), OM (operating margin) and CSD (corporate social disclosure) for five listed Swedish apparel companies on the Stockholm exchange market and five listed Chinese apparel companies on the Chinese exchange market by using both qualitative and quantitative approaches. The main findings are that there are mixed results in the relationship between CSR disclosure and operating performance for two countries’ companies. And there are some differences in this relationship between two countries’ companies.

CSR is a growing area but previous research has mainly focused on CSR in relation to financial results, society and other external factors. We found a gap in research as less research has been conducted on CSR efforts implications internally on organizations. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the understanding of the practice of CSR in organizations. It does so by investigating what implications CSR efforts have on organizations internally in terms of reporting, roles and routines. Our literature review gave us different expectations in regards to the three main themes. We expected to see more rigorous reporting, the roles to be either narrowed or extended, and consequently, observe routines either as routines-as-activity or routines-as-rules. We conducted a case study based on five in-depth interviews, which were triangulated with 27 speed interviews, a survey answered by 62 respondents and analysis of official documentations. Our analysis concluded that changes had occurred in reporting, roles and routines. However, this study is limited to a structural perspective and thus, we suggest future studies to be conducted in a nonstructural perspective as well.

The main purpose of this thesis is to study why the chosen case companies, Atlas Copco, Sandvik and Alfa Laval engage in CSR activities, with a secondary purpose of investigating how the aformentioned case companies has executed their engagement in CSR and what their present focus is. Our empirical findings suggest that the case companies have similar motives and approaches to CSR engagement. Whereas their main motivation for CSR engagement derives from a concern of legitimacy to their investor community, hence the case companies foremost emphasize an economic responsibility as a motivator and driver for their CSR agenda. In addition we have observed that all case companies use CSR reporting as the base-line for their CSR implementation, which our theoretical framework indicates is a systematic approach to mitigate risk and cost, as well as strengthen their reputation. Furthermore, we have observed that the case companies’ present concern in terms of their responsibility is focused on achieving a tighter implementation between a competitive business strategy and CSR activities as well as developing a better understanding of the increased complexity of social issues and human rights questions surrounding their widespread operations.

Corporate finance reporting is based in rigorous, rules-based frameworks yet environmental and social reporting does not seem to have these normalised tools. The sustainable development of the business movement, in terms of increased environmental and social responsibility, will remain marginal as long as policy decisions maintain their direction towards old models of corporate governance that are not based on the key principles of the triple-bottom line, CSR and accountability. This thesis attempts to gauge to what extent Public-Private Partnership performs a transparent and independent source and appraisal of the standards of Governance for Sustainability for selected firms. This investigation is delimited to an Environmental Social Governance metric analysis and comparison of non-financial corporate data disclosure in sustainability reports from the mining and metals industry in the Nordic countries. It has been inferred from the analysis that an extrapolation can be made based on the financial predictions and trend prospecting of LKAB, Boliden Group, Lundin Mining Corporation, and the Swedish Association of Mines, Mineral and Metal Producers for the future growth of both the Nordic mining sector and sustainability reporting. As a result, ‘best-practice’ in reporting procedures could be exported to where demand is highest from pioneering firms with the ‘first-mover’ advantage, to SME’s and other interested firm’s outside of the Nordic countries. It has been identified that using the Global Reporting Initiative reporting framework enhances partnerships in businesses that adopt and use its index to the extent where it becomes integrated into their management chains and business strategies. The more comprehensively a firm discloses its non-financial performances with relation to the GRI framework, the more integrated reports appear to become. The standardisation of the accurate reporting and disclosure used from the GRI G3.1 varies greatly just between three firms in the same sector and region.

This paper describes the effects of environmental innovation, or EI, on the market value of a firm. EI involves the creation or enhancement of ‘green’ products or ‘eco-efficient’ production processes which result in improved environmental performance. The study involves the selection of a number of press releases related to EI and environmental performance. These form the basis of an event study to determine the effect of these announcements on share prices. Results indicate that the market recognizes the value of EI, especially for product-driven initiatives. It is also found that the market values good environmental performance, particularly when it has been recognized externally through an award, membership, or certification. Implications for policy and for management are discussed.

In the current globalized market, multinational corporations are experiencing heightened external social and environmental pressures to operate more responsibly. Transnational activist groups and advocacy NGOs are successfully framing normative expectations on corporate social responsibility and using tactics to name and shame socially and environmentally controversial corporations to pressure them to change their practices. An international norm of corporate social responsibility is increasingly shared by states, intergovernmental organizations and the private sector itself, and visibly emerging in the market place. Corporations engage with NGOs to demonstrate their conformance to the norm. The study explains why corporations engage with NGOs in different ways. It argues that corporations weigh the material incentives associated with the social and environmental consequences of their activities, and conform to the norm accordingly. They thus use the norm to further their material interests. Given that corporations are exposed to different levels of normative external pressures, there are different engagement strategies. In order to explain the terms under which corporations are likely to choose a particular kind of engagement strategy, a three-level concept of vulnerability is introduced. The more a corporation is vulnerable to the external normative pressures, the deeper it is willing to work with NGO/NGOs to ease that pressure. Hence, in NGO-business engagements, actors collaborate in order to gain the anticipated positive rewards of cooperation. They perceive those advantages greater than if they had pursued their goals separately.

As companies discover the monetary benefits of a positive environmental image, a proliferation of green imaging confounds the public sphere. The consequence becomes the disarticulation of terms like environmental excellence, sustainable development, and minimum environmental harm. Because the oversaturation of greening efforts has elicited public distrust, stakeholders need timely and accurate information regarding environmental claims. As a major vehicle for communicating these efforts, corporate environmental reports (CERs) are laden with colorful and sublime images. This study examines the functionality of images found in CERs from 27 industry leaders, applying Sonja Foss’s tenets of visual rhetorical analysis to identify the nature and function of the images and offer an evaluation based on emergent themes. Because images are increasingly important to corporate transparency, the study concludes with several best practice recommendations to serve as ethical image design strategies and to reflect the ways companies address impactful operations.