Background: During recent years, the growing attention to environmental, social, and governance factors (ESG) as a recognized sustainability performance measurement has led to that corporate participation in sustainable development as one of the main concerns among stakeholders. The Nordic countries have been outstanding leaders in terms of sustainability for years and consistently ranked excellent on ESG scores. The role of ESG and its effect on value creation has been widely discussed by academics and stakeholders, but the results differ. Purpose: This thesis aims to study the relationship between ESG scores and a firm’s performance in terms of ROE in Nordic countries between 2020 to 2022 and investigate whether investing in environmental innovation strengthens or weakens the correlation between the two variables. The study uses both stakeholder and shareholder theories to explain the results. Method: The linear regression models were conducted on data collected from Thomson Reuters Eikon’s database (2023) between 2020-2022 on 150 firm observations and 450 firm-year observations to fulfil the study's purpose. Conclusion: The findings show a significant positive relationship between ESG scores and ROE, but environmental innovation weakened this relationship. The conclusions were drawn that Nordic firms which take more value into sustainability practices, especially ESG scores, enhance their financial performance, which is supported by the stakeholder theory. But firms with higher ESG, which invest more in environmental innovation, wouldn't pay off through better financial performance in the short run. Furthermore, the results from statistical models for two dummy variables, year, and country, indicate that the relationship between ESG scores and financial performance is neither significantly affected by time nor significantly by Nordic countries.

Sustainable business has become highly sought after today by stakeholders, which explains the importance of CSR for companies. Companies are required to work sustainably in order to legitimize themselves both in the market and society. This can be done by fulfilling and satisfying the economic, environmental and sustainable, as well as the social frameworks that exist in business society. Despite CSR's central role in companies, researchers have differentiated meanings on whether CSR initiatives really improve corporate profitability in terms of financial performance, and whether it has a positive relationship with corporate value. Regarding this, the report examines CSR's relationship to CFP and company value, through the profitability measures ROA and ROE, as well as the valuation measures market value and P/E ratio. A quantitative method has been applied to examine the companies published on Dagens Industri's sustainability index for the year 2021. Dagens Industri's list includes the largest listed companies in the GICS categories on the Swedish stock market exchange. The study uses regression analysis as a choice of statistical analysis method to examine the variables relationships. From the regressions, a small part of the result showed a weak negative relationship between CSR and ROA. The regressions otherwise mainly showed a non-significant relationship between CSR and a company's profitability and value. The variables do not have a significant relationship with each other, and a neutral relationship between them can thus be demonstrated. The existing research gap is therefore still ambiguous, hence the room for further future studies in the field.

Government introduced the Broad-based Black Economic Empowerment Act, No. 53 of 2003 and the Broad-based Black Economic Empowerment Codes of Good Practice (‘the Codes’) in 2007 to address the economic inequalities in South Africa by incentivising companies to include black people in economic activities. These incentives relate to implementation of preferential procurement, which is meant to favour companies that are BEE-compliant. Based on the literature and government’s intention with BEE policies, an assumption developed that companies with greater BEE compliance, which is measured through a BEE scorecard as per the Codes, would perform better in terms of market share through their revenue and in terms of profits. The main objective of this study was to carry out an in-depth analysis of the relationship between BEE scores and revenue growth and profitability of JSE-listed companies. This was done to determine whether the efforts by government of incentivising companies to be more BEE compliant are effective. This study was conducted as a two-part model consisting of regression analysis and ttest to determine whether there is a relationship between BEE scores and revenue and profitability. The regression analysis focused on the top 100 most black-empowered companies. The t-test was a comparison of two data sets, which consisted of companies in the top 100 most black-empowered companies and those that do no fall among the top 100 most black-empowered companies. The results showed that, at the time of this research, there were no significant relationships between BEE scores and revenue and profitability. The analysis of the research findings collectively demonstrated that for both the tests (regression and ttest), the relationship between revenue and profitability could not be established. Hence, the results postulate that BEE compliance does not produce the desired results for the companies, which can be translated into better profitability and market share. / Financial Accounting / M. Phil. (Accounting Sciences)

Syfte: Undersökningen syftar till att utifrån teorier kring kapitalstruktur och empiriska samband mellan skuldsättning och lönsamhet diskutera hur skuldsättning kan användas i ekonomistyrning. Metod: Undersökningen är gjord enligt kvantitativ forskningsmetod. Sekundärdata hämtas och analyseras med statistiska metoder. Resultaten diskuteras med teoretisk referensram. Slutsats :Studiens empiriska resultat visar på ett signifikant negativt samband mellan skuldsättning (​TSK ​ ) och lönsamhet (​ROA ​ ), samt ett signifikant positivt samband mellan skuldsättning (​TSK ​ ) och lönsamhet (​ROE ​ ). De empiriska resultaten tyder på att hur skuldsättning kan användas i ekonomistyrning beror på hur lönsamhet mäts. / Purpose: This study aims to; from theories of capital structure and empirical relations between debt and profitability discuss how debt can be used in management control. Method: This study follow quantitative research method. Secondary data is retrieved and analyzed by statistical methods. The results are discussed with the theoretical framework. Conclusion: Empirical results indicate a significant negative relationship between debt (​TSK ​ ) and profitability (​ROA ​ ), followed by a significant positive relationship between debt (​TSK ​ ) and profitability (​ROE ​ ). Empirical results further suggest that the measure of profitability is crucial for how debt can be used in management control.