Professional bodies represent practitioners who continually seek guidance on industry related problems and challenges. Each professional body adopts values that are aligned to their own field of expertise. The operations of professional bodies are generally similar in many aspects and demands proficiency in order to maintain credibility and relevance. Research has revealed that professional bodies are lacking in effectiveness and need to improve so that maximum benefit can be relished by practitioners. This research attempts to develop a framework that can be utilised as a guide by professional bodies so that they can achieve excellence. The aim of the study was to develop a framework that can be used for the management of professional bodies by exploring the views and opinions of a total of 748 participants from management and members of professional bodies locally. The data was collected from interviews, and two separate questionnaires, one for professional bodies and the other for practitioners. The data was analysed statistically primarily using factor analysis to determine the significant factors that contributed to the developed framework for professional bodies. The questionnaires espoused questions related to the demographics of the respondents, management, mandate of professional bodies, offerings and benefits, assurance mechanisms, role of members, needs of members and more. The research instrument used the seven point Likert scale for the respondents to rate each question. The questionnaires were posted online for the respondents to participate. The research significant factors for professional bodies and practitioners emanated separately through factor analysis. The factors were then combined resulting in a total of 14 research overall factors that were used to develop a framework for professional bodies. The beneficiaries of this study are primarily professional bodies. The framework will also be useful to management in industry since it addresses partnership and collaboration efforts between industry, professional bodies and training authorities. / Business Management / DBL

Bakgrund och problemformulering: Hållbarhetsrapporter blir allt viktigare för företag över hela världen till följd av samhällets fruktan och oro för miljöförstöringar, växthuseffekten, klimatförändringar och även mänskliga rättigheter där metoder rörande ett socialt ansvar uppmuntrats. Skogen framstår som viktig för hållbara material och produkter då den redogörs som väsentlig i klimatomställningen. Ett problem som har påvisats utifrån tidigare studier är kvaliteten på rapporterna. Kritik gentemot rapporterna har uppkommit där det föreligger en avsaknad av både trovärdighet och relevans.  Syfte: Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka kvaliteten i hållbarhetsrapporter i form av trovärdighet och relevans och få en djupare kunskap om kvaliteten i företagens hållbarhetsarbete. Vidare jämförs förändringar i kvaliteten i de valda företagens hållbarhetsrapporter mellan åren 2017-2021.  Forskningsfråga: Har kvaliteten i hållbarhetsrapporter utifrån trovärdighet och relevans inom skogsbranschen förändrats mellan åren 2017-2021? Metod: Denna studie är en komparativ och en longitudinell studie som bygger på en kvalitativ forskningsdesign med kvantitativa inslag i form av en innehållsanalys. För att undersöka kvaliteten i företagens hållbarhetsrapporter har ett kodningsschema med ett poängsystem tillämpats som baseras på trovärdighet och relevans.   Analys och slutsats: Resultatet visar en ökning av kvaliteten i hållbarhetsrapporterna mellan åren 2017-2021, där både trovärdigheten och relevansen har ökat. Hållbarhetsrapporternas trovärdighet översteg relevansen i de undersökta rapporterna. / Background and problem formulation: Sustainability reports are becoming increasingly important for companies all over the world as a result of society's fear and concern about environmental degradation, the greenhouse effect, climate change and also human rights where social responsibility practices have been encouraged. The forest appears to be important for sustainable materials and products as it is described as essential in climate change. A problem that has been demonstrated based on previous studies is the quality of the reports. Criticism of the reports has arisen where there is a lack of both credibility and relevance. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate the quality of sustainability reports in terms of credibility and relevance and to gain a deeper knowledge of the quality of the companies' sustainability work. Furthermore, changes in the quality of the selected companies' sustainability reports between the years 2017-2021 are compared. Research question: Has the quality of sustainability reports based on credibility and relevance in the forest industry changed between the years 2017-2021? Method: This study is a comparative and a longitudinal study based on a qualitative research design with quantitative elements in the form of a content analysis. To examine the quality of the companies' sustainability reports, a coding scheme with a scoring system based on credibility and relevance has been applied. Results and conclusion: The result shows an increase in the quality of the sustainability reports between the years 2017-2021, where both credibility and relevance have increased. The credibility of the sustainability reports exceeded the relevance of the investigated reports.

Professional bodies represent practitioners who continually seek guidance on industry related problems and challenges. Each professional body adopts values that are aligned to their own field of expertise. The operations of professional bodies are generally similar in many aspects and demands efficacy in order to maintain credibility and relevance. Research has revealed that professional bodies are lacking in efficacy and need to improve so that maximum benefit can be relished by practitioners. This research attempts to develop a framework that can be utilised as a guide by professional bodies so that they can achieve excellence. The aim of the study was to develop a framework that can be used for the formation, practice and management of professional bodies by exploring the views and opinions of a total of 1119 participants from management and members of professional bodies locally. The data was collected from interviews, a focus group discussion and two separate questionnaires, one for professional bodies and the other for practitioners. The data was analysed statistically primarily using factor analysis to determine the significant factors that contributed to the developed framework for professional bodies. The questionnaires espoused questions related to the demographics of the respondents, management, mandate of professional bodies, offerings and benefits, assurance mechanisms, role of members, needs of members and more. The research instrument used the seven point Likert scale for the respondents to rate each question. The questionnaires were posted online for the respondents to participate. The research significant factors for professional bodies and practitioners emanated separately through factor analysis. The factors were then combined resulting in a total of 14 research overall factors that were used to develop a framework for professional bodies. The beneficiaries of this study are primarily professional bodies, practitioners and also SAQA. The framework will also be useful to management in industry since it addresses partnership and collaboration efforts between industry, professional bodies and academia. / Business Management / D.B.L.