In 2014, the European Union enforced the new directive 2014/95/EU, shifting voluntary disclosure of non-financial information into mandatory. On December 31, 2016, the Swedish government implemented the directive into the Swedish Annual Account Act (ÅRL) with a more extensive regulation than stipulated by the EU's minimum requirements. In this thesis, an investigation of the EU directive's effects on Swedish firms' disclosure of non-financial information has been conducted through content analysis. 27 firms and a total of 308 reports during the time period 2014 to 2021 have been analyzed. Institutional theory, legitimacy theory, and stakeholder theory have guided the analysis of the findings. The results demonstrate that the level of non-financial disclosure has experienced a positive change due to the implementation of the directive. However, it is conducted that other pressures and influences in firm's environment, than solely the EU directives effects, can constitute possible explanations for the increase in firms´ disclosure of non-financial information during the period.

Ett aktuellt ämne i dagens samhälle är hållbarhet. Arbetet med hållbarhet har fått stor betydelse för företag. För att visa omvärlden hur företaget arbetar med hållbarhet upprättas hållbarhetsrapporter. Årsredovisningslagen tar upp att företag ska hållbarhetsrapportera, men det finns inga tydliga regler hur rapporten exakt ska göras. Detta är baserat på krav från EU direktivet 2014/95. Syftet med direktivet var att skapa harmonisering av hållbarhetsrapportering. Direktivet 2014/95 har inte bidragit till den harmonisering som det var tänkt från början. Det har nyligen kommit ett nytt förslag från European Financial Reporting Advisory Group (EFRAG) för hur hållbarhetsrapporteringen ska genomföras för att förbättra innehållet i rapporterna och bidra till att försöka skapa en standard för hållbarhetsrapportering. Denna standard är en del av det nya direktivet Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) om hållbarhetsredovisning. Syftet med denna studie är att få kunskap om hållbarhetsrapporteringen är harmoniserad i dagens praktik samt hur stor omställning det kommer att vara för företag att hållbarhetsrapportera enligt CSRD. Detta görs för att öka förståelsen om hur krävande omställningen till CSRD kommer att vara för företag samt om hållbarhetsrapporteringen är harmoniserad. Metoden som användes var en kvalitativ textanalys. 30 företag valdes ut från tre olika branscher som var kläder, transporter och livsmedelsframställning. Datainsamlingen gjordes genom att analysera företagens hållbarhetsrapporter utifrån ett granskningsformulär som innehöll punkter från EFRAG. Granskningsformuläret har begränsats genom att endast ta med de kvantitativa punkterna från EFRAG. Beroende på hur många punkter från granskningsformuläret som uppfylldes gick det att dra en slutsats om omställningen till CSRD kommer bli omfattande för företagen. Studien visar att hållbarhetsrapporterna inte är harmoniserade. Undersökningen visar även att företagens hållbarhetsrapporter är långt ifrån att uppfylla alla punkter från EFRAG. Hållbarhetsrapporterna skiljer sig mycket åt och de är svåra att jämföra då de innehåller en stor variation av kvantitativa mått. Slutsatsen är att det kommer bli en stor omställning för företag vid införandet av CSRD. / A current topic in today's society is sustainability. The work with sustainability has gained great importance for companies. To show the outside world how the company works with sustainability, sustainability reports are created. Årsredovisningslagen states that companies must report on sustainability, but there are no distinct rules of how exactly the report should be made. This is based on requirements from the EU directive 2014/95. The purpose of the directive was to create harmonization of sustainability reporting. Directive 2014/95 has not contributed to the harmonization it was originally intended to achieve. There has recently been a new proposal from European Financial Reporting Advisory Group (EFRAG) of how sustainability reporting should be implemented in order to improve the content of the reports and contribute to trying to create a standard for sustainability reporting. This standard is a part of a new directive called Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) of sustainability reporting. The purpose of this study is to gain knowledge about whether sustainability reporting is harmonized in today's practice and how big of a change it will be for companies to report sustainability according to CSRD. This is done to increase understanding of how demanding the transition to CSRD will be for companies and whether sustainability reporting is harmonized. The method used is a qualitative text analysis. 30 companies were selected from three different industries which were clothes, transportation and food production. The data collection was done by analyzing the companies ́sustainability reports based on a review form that contained items from EFRAG. The review form has been limited by only including the quantitative items from EFRAG. Depending on how many items from the review form that were completed, it was possible to draw a conclusion as to whether the transition to CSRD will be extensive for the companies. The study shows that the sustainability reports are not harmonized. The study shows that the companies ́sustainability reports are far from completing all the items from EFRAG. The sustainability reports differ greatly and are difficult to compare as they contain a wide variety of quantitative measures. The conclusion is that there will be a major adjustment for companies when CSRD is introduced.

The aim of the study is to analyze how Swedish large fashion companies' sustainability reports quality has been changed 2016-2019. The study wants to create a deeper understanding of the legislative change initiated by the EU that Sweden introduced in 2017. Quality is declared to consist of the three categories of credibility, content and communication. The study's issue was: “How has the quality of fashion companies' sustainability reports been affected when they became statutory to be produced?”. The sample consisted of 14 companies. Some of the companies prepared joint sustainability reports which led to the number of sustainability reports that the study analyzed being 10 reports per year 2016–2019. An additional report was added for 2019 when a company chose to prepare a report separately from the parent company. A qualitative content analysis was used as a method to study the selected 41 sustainability reports. The theories and concepts used in the study for analysis were triple bottom line, institutional theory, stakeholder theory, signal theory and GRI. The results showed that companies' quality of sustainability reports have changed both in accordance with the EU Directive 2014/95/EU, but largely due to surrounding factors. The study has provided a deeper understanding of companies' sustainability reporting and shown that there is no unambiguous change in quality when sustainability reporting for larger companies became mandatory by law.

Denna studie behandlar jämförbarhet inom hållbarhetsrapportering inom fordonsindustrin i Sverige. Tidigare forskning har visat att det finns brister i jämförbarhet gällande hållbarhetsredovisningar. Denna studie undersöker om detta fortfarande föreligger, och i så fall på vilket sätt och varför, med hjälp av en nulägesanalys. Studien undersöker även vilka förbättringsmöjligheter som finns bland identifierade brister. Studien är en kvalitativ studie med data i form av hållbarhetsrapporter. Resultatet från forskningen visade att jämförbarhet i fordonsindustrin i Sverige fortfarande brister. Intressenternas krav identifieras som främsta anledningen för brister i jämförbarhet, då det är per deras efterfrågan bolagen redovisar. Studien kom också fram till att skillnader i typ av kärnverksamhet hos företagen också är en determinant för detta. Förslag till förbättringar ges genom bättre integration av hela värdekedjan i hållbarhetsrapporteringen, samt ökad harmonisering av processer genom samarbete med branschorganisationer. Vidare ges förslag på skärpta och mer lämpliga formkrav av lagstiftning och bättre samarbete med lagstiftare och branschorganisationer för att uppnå detta. Författarna ger förslag för vidare forskning att undersöka de identifierade, såväl oidentifierade orsaker till brister i jämförbarhet och i vilken mån de är ansvariga för detta fenomen. / This study concerns comparability in sustainability reporting within the automotive sector in Sweden. Existing research has shown deficiencies in comparability of sustainability reports. The aim of the study is to examine, through an analysis of the current state of sustainability reporting, whether these shortcomings still exist and if so, how and why they present themselves. The study also aims to provide possible solutions for any identified deficiencies. The study is a qualitative study using empirical data in the form of sustainability reports. The results of the study show that sustainability reports in the automotive sector in Sweden still exhibit deficiencies in comparability. Stakeholder demands are identified as the primary reason for differences in reporting practices, as it’s per their demand that corporations report sustainability information. The study also identifies differences in the companies’ core activity as a determinant for this. Possible solutions are suggested as increased integration of the sustainability reporting of the value chain as a whole, as well as harmonisation of processes through cooperation with industry associations. Furthermore, increased quality control through legislation is suggested as well as increased cooperation between legislators and industry associations in order to achieve this. The authors suggest that further research can be aimed at identifying the respective importance of these different causes for shortcomings in comparability, as well as possible unidentified factors. The study was conducted and is presented in Swedish.

This paper-based dissertation comprises five essays dealing with corporate sustainability and digital reporting and is structured in six chapters. The first chapter is the introduction and provides an overview of the structure and aims of the dissertation, lays out the contribution of the work, and introduces the five manuscripts. The second chapter, respectively the first manuscript, deals with the consequences of mandatory sustainability reporting in Europe. Specifically, the study deals with the question whether Directive 2014/95/EU has achieved its objectives of increasing reporting quantity and quality. In the third chapter, the sustainability reports of the largest European firms are analyzed using computer-aided text analysis. This study investigates whether and how external assurance of sustainability reports is beneficial from the viewpoint of report transparency, which is proxied by reporting scope, optimism, and readability. In the fourth chapter, the role of corporate sustainability in the context of M&A transactions is examined, precisely whether sustainability influences the premia paid in M&A transactions. The fifth and the sixth chapters center around the voluntary usage of online financial reporting (OFR) in Europe. While the fifth chapter is concerned with the usage and empirical determinants of OFR, the analysis in the sixth chapter examines the impact of OFR on the financial market, specifically on analyst following and stock liquidity.