Bakgrund och problemdiskussion: Mellan åren 2015-2020 har Nordea, Svenska Handelsbanken, SEB och Swedbank vid flertalet tillfällen delgivits sanktionsavgifter för brister i arbetet mot korruption och penningtvätt. Penningtvätt är en del av korruption och beskrivs av flertalet forskare som ett globalt problem där banker spelar en stor roll när det kommer till att dölja olagliga pengar. Banker som tidigare varit inblandade i skandaler tenderar att ha bristande förtroende bland intressenter vilket bland annat påverkar bankernas legitimitet negativt.  Syfte: Syftet med denna undersökning är att redogöra för vilken information som Nordea, Svenska Handelsbanken, SEB och Swedbank avslöjar i sina hållbarhetsredovisningar om korruption och penningtvätt utifrån indikatorerna i GRI 205: Anti-corruption. Studien syftar till att analysera innehållet i de skriftliga hållbarhetsredovisningarna för att således kunna dra slutsatser kring eventuella likheter och skillnader gällande bankernas avslöjande om korruption och penningtvätt.  Metod: För att besvara studiens forskningsfråga har en kvalitativ innehållsanalys som datainsamlingsmetod tillämpats. Den kvalitativa innehållsanalysen har legat till grund för analysen av Nordeas, Svenska Handelsbankens, SEB:s och Swedbanks hållbarhetsredovisningar för åren 2017 till 2020.  Slutsats: Studiens resultat visar på att samtliga banker avslöjar mest information om affärshändelser avseende risk för korruption samt kommunikation och utbildning om politik och procedurer mot korruption. Denna studie konstaterar även att det avslöjas minst information gällande åtgärder som vidtagits på grund av korruptionincidenter. Dock utmärker sig Svenska Handelsbanken i detta då de avslöjar inträffade händelser kring korruption och penningtvätt som de varit involverade i, vilket resterande banker inte gör. Detta samtidigt som Svenska Handelsbanken är den bank som varit minst involverade i korruptionsskandaler de senaste åren, i jämförelse med Nordea, SEB och Swedbank. Studien visade även på att samtliga banker enbart redovisar kring några utvalda punkter inom varje indikator. Bankerna avslöjar endast information som berör en eller få av alla de punkter inom GRI 205: Anti-corruption. / Background and problem: Between the years 2015-2020, the banks Nordea, Svenska Handelsbanken, SEB and Swedbank have on most occasions been notified of penalty fees for shortcomings in the work against corruption and money laundering. Money laundering is a part of corruption and is described by most researchers as a global problem where banks play a major role when it comes to hiding illegal money. Banks that have previously been involved in scandals tend to have a lack of trust among stakeholders, which among other things, has a negative effect on banks’ legitimacy.  Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to report on Nordea´s, Svenska Handelsbanken´s, SEB´s and Swedbank´s corruption and money laundering disclosure, based on the indicators in GRI 205: Anti-corruption, in their sustainability reports. The study aims to analyze the content of the sustainability reports of the four banks in order to draw conclusions about possible similarities and differences regarding the banks’ corruption and money laundering disclosure.  Method: In order to answer the study's research question, a qualitative content analysis has been applied. The qualitative content analysis has formed the basis for the analysis of the four major Swedish banks´sustainability reports for the years 2017 to 2020.  Findings: The results of the study shows that all banks reveal most information about business activities regarding the risk of corruption as well as communication and education about policies and procedures against corruption. This study also ensures that it reveals the least information regarding measures taken due to corruption incidents. However, Svenska Handelsbanken excels in this as they reveal incidents of corruption and money laundering that they have been involved in, which the remaining banks do not. This at the same time as Svenska Handelsbanken is the bank that has been least involved in corruption scandals in recent years, in comparison with Nordea, SEB and Swedbank. The study also showed that all banks only report on a few selected parts within each indicator. Banks only disclose information that affects or receives all points within GRI 205: Anti-Corruption.

Sustainability assurance is on the uprising. Nowadays, more and more companies are thinking about sustainability which resulted in a growing market for sustainability assurance. The global reporting initiative (2013, p.6) defines sustainability assurance as “the use of external, independent reviews of sustainability management processes and final disclosures is intended to increase the robustness, accuracy and trustworthiness of disclosed information.”. Unlike financial auditing, sustainability assurance ismostly unregulated and there are various guidelines and frameworks issued to help the assurance provider. The lack of mandatory regulations has resulted in a fragmented assurance environment where different approaches is used by different assurance providers. This in turn has contributed to the sustainability assurance process being unknown. The uncertainty around sustainability assurance affect the usersof the assurance report, for example stakeholders’, which can find it difficult to identify, interpretand compare the results of the sustainability assurance.The purpose of this study is to contribute to the limited knowledge on sustainability assurance, by investigating the sustainability assurance from both auditors’ and non-auditors’ perspectives.To assist in fulfilling the purpose, four main themes were developed; assurance team, assurance process, assurance report and the future of sustainability assurance. To fulfill the purpose of this study, the research questions are;“What is the audit process of sustainability reports?”“What does the sustainability assurance team look like?”“What does the sustainability assurance report look like?”The result in this study suggests that the process of sustainability assurance looks different depending on the assurance provider. The findings also suggest that the assurance team almost looks the same, regardless who is the assurance provider. When it comes to the results regarding the assurance report, it is evident that there are many ways to improve theusefulness and informativeness of the report. Furthermore, the findings of this study contribute to the limited knowledge of sustainability assurance by thoroughly exploring the assurance process.

Our planet suffers from severe climate change and environmental issues has never been as important as it is now. Countries and communities come together to get involved in environmental questions and to work against a sustainable future. Companies are also expected to take act on this concern and incorporate sustainability into their business practices. To account for this, company’s disclosure a sustainability report and the numbers of companies that do so has increased rapidly the last years. From 2011 to 2013 there was almost a 50% increase of submitted sustainability reports. Since then, sustainability reporting has gone from optional to mandatory as a new law came into place in 2016. However, as companies start to disclosure sustainability reports more than ever before, new issues have arisen. The lack of regulation means that there is no guarantee for quality in the report and studies has shown that the stakeholders demand higher quality and more transparency of the sustainability report. Thus, it could be of importance for companies to produce reports of better quality in order to meet the demands of their stakeholders. Retaining a good relationship is crucial and it affects the growth of the company as it affects competitive advantage and the possibility to manage risks. Previous literature has found evidence that stakeholder pressure has influence on the transparency, which has similarities to quality, of the sustainability reports globally. With this thesis we aim to contribute with additional information to existing literature with a new geographical area, Sweden. We also aim to contribute to understanding of how quality of the sustainability reports can be determined. The critical assessment of the sustainability reports from each stakeholder becomes more important and previous literature has shown that different stakeholders have different effect on transparency in the sustainability reports. First and foremost, the purpose of this thesis is to investigate if the pressure from different stakeholder groups has an effect on the quality of the sustainability report. We intend to do so with the following research question: Does stakeholder pressure have an effect on the quality of sustainability reports? The companies will be split into four different groups based on the industry the company operates within and the sub-purpose is to see if there is any difference in the impact on the quality of the sustainability reports between the different groups. The quality will be determined by adherence level to the GRI G4 framework, how many other standards and guidelines the report is in compliance with and the existence of external assurance. The population is the 127 companies who has their reports available in the GRI database. We have conducted a quantitative study using a linear regression analysis on those 127 companies. The results led us to the conclusion that the relationship between stakeholder pressure and the quality of the sustainability reports cannot be explained by the model used in this thesis. A two-sample t test was conducted for each group of industry to see if there was any difference of the mean of quality if the companies was represented in the industry or not. The results showed us that the mean of the quality was higher for the companies operating in an environmentally sensitive industry.

SAMMANFATTNING Datum:                                  2022-06-01 Nivå:                                       Kandidatuppsats Företagsekonomi,                  15hp                   Akademi:                             Akademin för Ekonomi, Samhälle och Teknik, Mälardalens Universitet Författare:                          David Ek                                                                         Grigor Injighulyan960307                                                                                    93/09/01 Titel:                                       Hållbarhetsredovisningens förändring efter införandet av lagstadgad hållbarhetsredovisning Handledare:                       Leanne Johnstone Nyckelord:                          Hållbarhetsredovisning, Legitimitetsteori, Frivillig hållbarhetsredovisning, Årsredovisningslagen Forskningsfråga:            Hur har redovisningen och innehållet kring hållbarhet förändrats efter införandet av EU-direktivet och den lagstadgade hållbarhetsredovisningen i Sverige? Syfte:                                      Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka förändringen av hållbarhetsredovisningen före och efter införandet av SFS 2016:947. Men även att skapa en förståelse för hur lagen påverkar företagens tidigare frivilliga hållbarhetsredovisning Metod:                                   Kvalitativ metod Slutsats:          Förändringen som skett är numera i linje med vad SFS 2016:947 säger ska finnas med i en hållbarhetsredovisning. Den stora skillnaden är innehållet som har ökat markant efter den nya lagstiftningen. Företagen visar numera tydligare hur de går tillväga för att hållbarhetsredovisa, det vill säga vilka system och processer de använder internt. Dock finns det tydliga indikationer på att samhällets normer och värderingar är betydande för uppbyggandet av hållbarhetsrapporterna, vilket har sin förklaring i legitimitetsteorin.

This thesis investigates the relationship between sustainability performance and ownership structure, measured using the ESG (environmental, social and governance) rating and ownership structure divided into four different ownerships (family/founder, institutional, corporate and governmental). In the pursuit of analysing the relationship between the ESG rating and the ownership structure, this study investigates publicly listed companies within the Nordic countries.This thesis has the aim of examining if a publicly listed company can use sustainability ratings and ownership structure, to understand broader market dynamics and help the manager thru this maximise firm value. Results from this could help them and the public in decision making processes around sustainability initiatives and how these characteristics influence the Nordic market dynamics, by having a better understanding of how the ESG ratings are prioritised among different ownership structures. This knowledge would allow management and the public to better understand how the ESG rating affects firm’s sustainability value as well as how market dynamics of this information is related to the market as a whole and direct competition.Using secondary data collected from Refinitiv database and Nasdaq, this thesis is a deductive and quantitative research that analyses companies for the target year 2020. In addition, this research can be considered to be a historic study.The findings of this research indicate a causal relation between sustainability performance and ownership structure, leading to the conclusion that a different ownership structure might influence and lead to a different score on the scale of sustainability performance. Furthermore, the findings indicate that the governmental ownership structure has the highest positive effect on sustainability performance.Concluding with discussing how this research contributes to the current field of knowledge on the topic through analysing the results using the legitimacy, shareholder, stakeholder and agency theory. The results are aligned with the legitimacy theory on ownership structure and the stakeholder theory. Additionally, the shareholder and the agency theory help with explaining why some structures put less value on sustainability performance than others.From the results one can conclude that sustainability performance is of importance to a varying degree among the different ownership structures. This tells us that there is still a gap in understanding why different ownership structures engage in different sustainability initiatives and future research is needed to examine why different structures engage in it over others.

The esport industry is growing, and it is growing fast. Research suggests that the phenomenon of esport poses a great opportunity to research the development and assessment of human expertise in our modern digitized society. Consequently, the research in this thesis is that of a case study of an esport organization through which we have sought to answer the research question: "How do stakeholders within an esport organization view human capital, that is the investment in, and the development, assessment, and treatment of players?" We answered this research question by gathering relevant empirical material through five semi-structured interviews, which we analyzed to gain a deeper understanding of the underlying reasons and different justifications as to how human capital in the organization is viewed by different stakeholders within the organization. We present four general conclusions. Firstly, there were similar views among the different stakeholders regarding investments in and development of players. Secondly, it was apparent that the stakeholders viewed the players as the core of the business. Thirdly, upper management seemed to carry more of a goal-oriented perspective on the players development as opposed to stakeholders more ‘hierarchically’ adjacent to the players. And lastly, the investments in the players' development were justified through various aspects. Through these conclusions, we i) contribute to managerial/organizational knowledge on how or how not to invest in, develop, assess, and treat human capital in an esport organization, ii) contribute theoretically by applying various different theories and concepts in an esport context; thus expanding the theoretical knowledge of the capabilities and usage of said theories and concepts, and iii) contribute to the empirical body of literature regarding the esport phenomenon by portraying different stakeholder views of human capital within an esport context.

The fashion industry is the third largest manufacturing industry in the world. Companies’ sustainability reports contain the organization's social, economic and environmental work. Comparability is a necessary principle for stakeholders to make investment decisions between companies based on their sustainability reports. Voluntary sustainability reporting has recently become more common. Furthermore, states årsredovisningslagen (ÅRL) in Sweden that certain companies are obliged to prepare sustainability reports. In the US, on the other hand, there are no requirements for companies to report about sustainability. The comparability between companies' sustainability reports is improved by following Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) standards. The purpose of the study is to make a comparison between Swedish and American companies' sustainability reports and within each country in the fashion industry. The aim is to see how well companies’ sustainability reports in the US and Sweden follow the principle of comparability in terms of indicators in GRI's standards. To investigate this, a quantitative and qualitative method have been used. Theories used in the investigation to study comparability in American and Swedish clothing companies are the institutional theory and the legitimacy theory. The study shows that comparability is generally deficient between the US and Sweden and within each country. Worst comparability was found between Sweden and the US but within each country, Sweden had the best comparability

rågorna kring företagens påverkan på klimatet, samhället och ekonomin blir allt viktigare. Även frågan gällande vad det leder till för konsekvenser när företag använder sig av okontroversiella metoder för att hänga med i utvecklingen och för att möta intressenternas intresse. Företag använder sig av greenwashing vilket innebär att de vilseleder intressenterna genom att påstå sig göra en sak men agerar på ett annat sätt. Detta för att upprätthålla intressenternas tillfredsställelse för stunden, vilket dock kan komma att skada företaget vid ett avslöjande. Denna studie syftar till att analysera hållbarhetsredovisningar och hur de påverkas när ett företag varit inblandat i en greenwashingskandal. Studien är en kvalitativ innehållsanalys där vi har undersökt och utgått ifrån företagens hållbarhetsredovisningar från året innan skandalen, året under, samt året efter som underlag. Studien fokuserar på totalt tre bolag, Telia, Volkswagen och Stora Enso. Vidare presenteras djupgående analyser som utförs med hjälp av en kodningsmanual som tar stöd i bland annat intressent- och legitimitetsteorin för vardera bolag, för att sedan mynna ut i en jämförande analys där paralleller dras mellan företagen. Studien mynnar ut i slutsatser kopplade till frågeställningarna om hur rapporterna förändras efter en greenwashingskandal. Delvis gällande vilken del intressenterna har i återuppbyggnaden av legitimiteten efter en skandal, samt hur ett företag arbetar för att återställa sin legitimitet efter en skandal. Resultatets innehåll består av information från totalt nio hållbarhetsrapporter som sedan ska besvara frågeställningarna. Analysen konstaterar att företagen anstränger sig för att bibehålla sin legitimitet, vidare framkommer det även att de vill nå ut till sina intressenter och poängterar att de är viktiga för företagen. Flera förändringar presenteras till följd av skandalen, och företagen försöker vara transparenta för att skapa legitimitet. Det framkommer även att greenwashing förekommit i alla berörda skandaler. I slutsatsen fastställs att en viss grupp av intressenter har en speciell roll i uppbyggandet av legitimiteten efter en skandal, vilket är de anställda. Vidare menar studien att antagandet om att hållbarhetsrapporterna genomgår stora förändringar efter en uppmärksammad greenwashingskandal stämmer. / Corporations' impact on the climate, the society and the economy are issues growing bigger day by day. When the corporations use unconventional methods that might not always be according to the books to keep up with the development but also with their stakeholders, what happens then? The corporations use greenwashing to keep their stakeholders satisfied but later get hurt by it. This article aims to analyze sustainability reports and how they are impacted by a scandal that are caused by it using greenwashing. It is a qualitative study focusing on Telia, Volkswagen and Stora Enso's sustainability reports the year prior to, the year during and the year after the scandal was discovered. In depth analyzes are presented comparing the different years but also the companies to one another. The analyzes were made with a perspective out of the stakeholder theory and the legitimacy theory ans a coding manual. There is also a focus on the scandals and how the corporations represent them in their reports. This study finds the answer to the questions how reports change after a scandal, how stakeholders are a part of the reconstruction of the legitimacy after a scandal and also what corporations does to gain back their legitimacy. The result contains paraphrases on the nine reports where Telia's reports focuses on the economic part of sustainability, Volkswagen’s focus on the environmental part and Stora Enso's focuses on the social part. In the analyzes it is stated that the corporations do a lot to keep their legitimacy, the corporations also want to point out to the stakeholders that they are very important to them. There is a lot of changes presented as a result of the scandal, the corporations want to be transparent to gain legitimacy. It appears that greenwashing plays a part in all the companies' reports. Exampels on all of this is included in the article. The study concludes stakeholders are part of the reconstruction after a scandal, especially the employees. The assumption that sustainability reports go through big changes is also shown to be correct.

Sociala och miljömässiga frågor är ämnen som spelar en central roll för hur synen på en hållbar och rättvis värld ska fungera i framtiden. Syftet med studien var att undersöka hur branschtillhörighet och företagsstorlek i form av antalet anställda påverkar mängden hållbarhetsinformation företag rapporterar i sina hållbarhetsrapporter. Uppsatsen undersökte femton företag som är listade på Stockholmsbörsens Large Cap, där finans-, industri- och telekombranschen studerades. Studiens syfte och hypoteser undersöktes utifrån en kvantitativ forskningsansats i form av en multipel fallstudie, där en innehållsanalys genomfördes av respektive företags hållbarhetsrapporter för året 2019. Innehållsanalysen utgick ifrån en checklista som skapades utifrån GRIs uppställda riktlinjer för hållbarhetsrapportering. Insamlad data flyttades sedan över från checklistan till en kodningsmall. Detta gjordes i syfte att visa en tydligare bild över antal rapporterade parametrar och att kvantifiera studiens frågeställning till siffror. Den insamlade empirin analyserades sedan utifrån den givna teoretiska referensramen, där studiens syfte och material kopplades till legitimitet- och intressentteorin. Studiens slutsats visar på att både branschtillhörighet och företagsstorlek i form av antalet anställda är en avgörande faktorer på mängden information en hållbarhetsrapport innehåller. / Social and environmental issues are topics that play an important role in envisioning a sustainable and fair future. The purpose of this study was to investigate how industry affiliation and company size, measured by the number of employees, affect the amount of information a company reports in its sustainability report. The thesis examined fifteen companies listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange's Large Cap, which included companies in the finance, industrial and telecom sectors. The purpose and hypotheses of the study were examined by using a multiple case study through a quantitative research approach, where a content analysis was conducted on each of the respective companies' sustainability reports for the year of 2019. The content analysis was built upon a checklist based on GRI's established guidelines for sustainability reports. The collected data was then transferred from the checklist to a coding template. This was done in order to show and to quantify the study's research topic in to numbers. The collected empirical data was thereafter analyzed based on the given theoretical frame of reference, where the purpose and materials of the study were linked to the legitimacy and stakeholder theories. The study's conclusion indicates that both industry affiliation and company size in terms of the number of employees are a crucial factors in the amount of information a company puts in its sustainability report.

Sammanfattning Titel: Lagstadgad hållbarhetsrapportering: Vilken förändring har skett i företagens redovisning efterinförandet av lagstadgad hållbarhetsrapportering?  Nivå: Kandidatuppsats i företagsekonomi Författare: Alinde Johansson och Gabriel Dunberg Handledare: Annika Lake Datum: 2022 - Januari Syfte: Syftet med denna studie är att analysera förändringarna i företags hållbarhetsrapporter föreoch efter införande av lagstadgad hållbarhetsrapportering (lag SFS 2016:947). Metod: Studien använder sig av en kvantitativ forskningsmetod där datainsamling har skettgenom en innehållsanalys av företags hållbarhetsrapporter. Med utgångspunkt i 6 kap. 12 §ÅRL har en kodningsmanual med indikatorer för tolkning av data tagits fram. Resultat och slutsats: Undersökningen visar att före införandet av lag på hållbarhetsrapportredovisades hållbarhet av samtliga företag som ingår i studien i någon form. Studienobserverade en ökning i antalet uppnådda indikatorer i en majoritet av företagen. Examensarbetets bidrag: Denna studie bidrar till att visa i vilken utsträckning lagstadgadhållbarhetsredovisning har påverkat hållbarhetsrapporteringen i Svenska noterade företaginom large cap. Förslag till fortsatt forskning: Då vår undersökning begränsats till ett mindre urval är vårtförslag på fortsatt forskning att genomföra en studie på ett större urval för att kunna se hurhållbarhetsrapporteringen förändrats i olika branscher, i jämförelse med small cap och largecap och/eller mellan olika länder. Eftersom flera företag i studien uppfyllt samtligaindikatorer men antalet producerade sidor skiljer sig åt hade även en kvalitativ studie påskillnaderna varit intressant. Nyckelord: Hållbarhetsredovisning, Signaleringsteorin, Legitimitetsteorin, Frivilligredovisning, Årsredovisningslagen / Abstract Title: Statutory sustainability reporting: What change has taken place in the companies' accounts afterthe introduction of statutory sustainability reporting? Level: Bachelor's thesis in Business Administration Authors: Alinde Johansson and Gabriel Dunberg Supervisor: Annika Lake Date: 2022-january Aim: The purpose of this study is to analyze the changes in companies' sustainability reports before and after the introduction of statutory sustainability reporting (Act SFS 2016: 947). Method: The study uses a quantitative research method where data collection has takenplace through a content analysis of companies' sustainability reports. Based on Chapter6 Section 12 of the Annual Accounts Act a coding manual with indicators forinterpreting data has been produced. Results and conclusion: The study shows that before the introduction of legislation onsustainability reports, sustainability was reported by all companies included in the studyin some form. The study observed an increase in the number of indicators achieved in amajority of companies. Contribution of the thesis: This study contributes to showing the extent to whichstatutory sustainability reporting has affected sustainability reporting in Swedish listedcompanies within large cap. Recommendations to future research: As our study is limited to a smaller sample, ourproposal for further research is to conduct a study on a larger sample to be able to seehow sustainability reporting has changed in different industries, in comparison withsmall cap and large cap and / or between different countries. Since several companies inthe study met all the indicators but the number of pages produced differed, a qualitativestudy of the differences would also have been interesting. Keywords: Sustainability Report, Signaling Theory, Legitimacy Theory, Voluntaryaccounting, Annual Accounts Act