M.Comm. / The purpose of this study is to explore and substantiate why Corporate Social and Environmental Responsibility (CSER) is important as a business practice in order to meet the productivity levels, enhance the image or reputation, financial bottom line and sustainability of the company. The belief that Business has a socio-economic responsibility is not a new proposition. Peter Drucker a well renowned sociologist argued that firms have a social dimension as well as an economic purpose in his second book, The Future of Industrial Man, in 1942. During the late 1960's and 1970's Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) emerged as a top management concern in both the United States and in Europe only to seemingly disappear in the 1980's. Today, Corporate Social Responsibility is back on the agenda of many CEOs. This time it is also on the agenda of governments, both national and local, as well as NGOs, consumer groups, investors and other actors in civil society. The concept of CSER has now become an important business practice hence the need to further investigate its relevance within the South African context. Recently CSER as business practice has emerged as an important factor due to the everincreasing emphasis on human and environmental rights. The pressures for business to behave in an ethical manner has broadened its core functions, hence the need to embrace it in the organisational strategy. Due to some of these reasons CSER has now become a buzzword in the corporate world, among civil society groups and other stakeholders who have an interest in the behaviour of business. This spotlight has led to a more voluntary factoring in of ethical practices, social policies in the overall internal and external organisational strategy and operations of business. The raison d' etre for this paradigm shift, is also exacerbated by the new business focus, on triple bottom line reporting, which not only emphasises the financial bottom line but also transparency and accountability in the social and environmental aspects which are integral to the firm. The latter mentioned areas have become important benchmarks for overall performance, reporting and disclosure to stakeholders.

Hållbarhetsredovisningen har utvecklats allt mer de senaste åren. Allt fler företag hållbarhetsredovisar och många länder väljer att reglera hållbarhetsredovisningen genom lag. Den mest använda standarden ges ut av Global Reporting Initiative, GRI. Deras senaste standard, G4, kom 2013 och dess utveckling går mot att företagens intressenter ska bli allt mer involverade och att hållbarhetsrapporten bör granskas av tredje part. Allt för att öka trovärdigheten på rapporten samt för att minska grönmålningen, aktiviteter där företagen framställer sig som mer hållbara än vad de är. Teorin lyfter fram ökad reglering, ökad involvering av intressenter samt granskning av hållbarhetsrapporten som aktiviteter för att minska grönmålningen och öka trovärdigheten hos ens intressenter.   Vi har i denna studie försökt visa på skillnader i balansen på positiva och negativa nyheter utifrån vilken redovisningsstandard företagen använder, G3 eller G4 samt utifrån om hållbarhetsrapporten granskats eller ej. Genom en innehållsanalys har vi kodat nyheterna i hållbarhetsredovisningarna som positiva eller negativa, som text, tabell eller diagram samt som hård eller mjuk. Vi har sedan gjort t-tester på vårt material för att se om eventuella skillnader finns. De skillnader vi finner påvisar ökad grönmålning i rapporter uppställda enligt G4, samt i granskade rapporter, varför vi ifrågasätter deras förmåga att hindra företag från att grönmåla. Tidigare forskning kring hållbarhetsredovisning har visat att de rapporterande företagens storlek har stor inverkan på deras rapportering, varför vi också valde att testa denna aspekt. Resultatet vi fick av dessa tester tyder på att större företag i högre grad grönmålar sina hållbarhetsrapporter jämfört med mindre företag. / Corporate Social Responsibility reporting has developed further over the past years. More and more companies publish CSR reports and several countries have passed regulations enforcing CSR reporting. The most commonly used reporting standard is published by the Global Reporting Initative, GRI. Their latest standard, G4, was released in 2013 and it is more focused on the involvement of stakeholders in the reporting process. It also encourages external assurance of reports. This is to increase credibility for the reports and to counter greenwashing, activities that companies use to seem more sustainable than they really are. Previous research has put forward increased regulation, increased involvement of stakeholders, and external assurance of CSR reports as activities capable of mitigating greenwashing and increasing credibility.   In this study we have sought to proove differences in balance between positive and negative news based on the reporting standard companies are using, G3 or G4, as well as based on wheather the report has been externally assured or not. We have conducted a content analysis of CSR reports and coded their contents based on value, type, attribution, and wheather the information is hard or soft. We then ran t-tests on our material to discover differences. The differences we found point to an increase in greenwashing for reports made according to G4, as well as for reports that are externally assured, which makes us question their ability to counter greenwashing. Previous research have proved that the size of the reporting company has a big effect on their reporting behaviour, something we also tested. The results from these tests show that larger companies tend to greenwash their CSR reports more than smaller companies.

Arguments for the incompatibility of determinism and moral responsibility sometimes make use of various transfer of non-responsibility principles. These principles purport to specify conditions in which lack of moral responsibility is transmitted to the consequences of things for which people are not morally responsible. In this paper, after developing what I take to be the most serious objections to extant principles of this sort, I identify and defend a new transfer of non-responsibility principle that is immune to these and other objections. This new principle says, roughly, that if you are not morally responsible for any of the circumstances that led to a particular outcome, and if you are not morally responsible for those circumstances leading to that outcome, then you are not morally responsible for the outcome either. After defending this principle against a number of objections, I use it to argue for the conclusion that no one is even partly morally responsible for anything, if determinism is true.

Europeiska Unionens strategi för biologisk mångfald 2020, har snart avklarats, och tiden är inne för att bedöma strategins styrkor och svagheter. Allt som nedbrytningen av ekosystem och förlust av biologisk mångfald fortsätter att öka, är betydelsen av den politiska beslutsprocessen och politikers tillvägagångsätt mot ett hållbart utnyttjande av ekosystemtjänster större än någonsin tidigare. Med sex huvudmål och 20 åtgärder för att nå dessa mål, analyserar denna studien innebörden och kontexten av dessa åtgärder för att se hur ansvar i förhållande till tillvägagångssätt har en inverkan på åtgärdens samt strategins produktivitet. En modell skapades för att visa de specifika koderna, och relationen mellan tillvägagångsätt (direkt och indirekt ansvar) och produktivitet. / The European Union biodiversity strategy 2020 has soon run its course, and it is time to start assessing its success as well as its weaknesses. As the degradation of ecosystems and loss of biodiversity continues to speed up, the importance of political governance and policy makers’ approaches toward a sustainable use of ecosystem services, and loss of the loss of biodiversity, is greater than ever. With six targets and 20 actions to reach these goals, this study analyzes their content and context to see if responsibility, with regards to approach, has an impact on the productivity of the action, and the strategy. This has led to the creation of a model, mapping the actions and specific codes in an effort to find a relationship between the approach (direct and indirect responsibility) and productivity.

Stockhult, H. (2005) Medarbetaransvar – ett sätt att visa värderingar. Enkonceptualisering av medarbetarnas ansvar och ansvarstagande i callcenter.(Employee responsibility – a way of expressing values. A conceptual study ofresponsibility and how it is assumed in call center). Written in Swedish. ÖrebroStudies in Business 1. 219 pp.The focus of this study is on responsibility and how it is assumed in call centers.Call centers have developed during the last few decades and they are representinga new way of providing customer service. In scientific management there is asharp division between the planning and the execution of work. This division isalso very evident in most call centers today. But managers today often implicitlyexpect employees to take responsibility for more than the ascribed work task.The employees also expect a working situation where they are trusted with a lotof opportunities to take responsibility. In the light of these facts, the question thatshould be answered in this study is: In what ways are employees takingresponsibility in the call center organization?The knowledge acquired is based on theoretical assumptions aboutresponsibility. It is assumed that responsibility is partly given to the employee bymanagement, but also assumes responsibility on the basis of other criteria, thatcome from within the individual. The theories of responsibility are used forinterpreting actions in the call center organization. Empirically the study includestwo call center organizations. One of the call centers is mostly selling products orservices for other companies. The other call center is a nordic bank that givessupport to and sells products to the customers of its own.The results from the study confirm that besides the responsibility given bymanagement, the employees assume some other responsibilities that they perceiveas their own, self-imposed, responsibilities as employees. These self-imposedresponsibilities include responsibility for the customer, for the colleagues and foronesself. To assume these self-imposed responsibilities, the employees must tosome extent, act in reverse regarding the responsibilities given by the employer.Another conclusion is that the role of the group manager is important for the callcenter operators’ way of assuming responsibility. The last conclusion is thatalthough employers often state that they want the employee to take personalresponsibility, this favourable attitude does not show in the call center practice.

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This thesis consists of three essays that contribute to the understanding of the economic implications of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) for certain durable (e.g. electronics) and consumable (e.g. pharmaceuticals) products from an operational perspective. In the first essay, we investigate the effect of EPR-based policy on a durable good producer’s secondary market strategy. Our analysis uncovers possible strategic approach of durable good producers to EPR obligations, which may result in unintended outcomes. We provide insights into how to set EPR obligations to avoid these adverse outcomes. In the second essay, we examine the operational details of market-based EPR implementation on the ground. We analyze whether the advocated premises of the marked-based approach hold by focusing on the Minnesota Electronics Recycling Act. Based on evaluation reports and stakeholder interviews, we find that the Minnesota Act achieves the premises of the market-based approach, but this occurs at the expense of several unintended outcomes, following unforeseen market dynamics and associated stakeholder interactions. In the third essay, we explore how the EPR-based policies can be effectively operationalized for managing pharmaceutical overage by analyzing the interactions between major stakeholders and moderating factors for these interactions. We demonstrate that the preferred policy depends on the healthcare and externality characteristics of the medicine together with collection-related requirements. Additionally, we investigate the perspectives of pharmaceutical stakeholders on the policy choice and identify the influential factors in this context.

published_or_final_version / Philosophy / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Politics and Public Administration / Master / Master of Public Administration

Exploring two hotly contested issues, corporate social responsibility (CSR) and the extractive industries, this report will demonstrate to a general reading audience the necessity of CSR as a business practice. The report finds that, given pressures from globalization and stakeholders, CSR is no longer an optional practice in the extractive industries but a business imperative. In general, why is CSR an important practice for businesses to adopt? In the extractive industries, what distinguishing CSR issues do they face, and how is CSR being propelled forwards in these industries? This report explores these questions and offers recommendations for policymakers and extractive companies on how to ensure CSR is implemented in a way that meets society’s great expectations. / text