In water governance, where problems are controversial and value laden, different forms of stakeholder involvement have become common and are frequently required. Stakeholder participation is often recognized as fundamental to the legitimacy and success of negotiated environmental decisions, but the intricacies of why stakeholders participate has received less attention. We examine factors that influenced stakeholder participation in the Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement and Klamath Hydroelectric Settlement Agreement of 2010. The research draws on in-depth, semistructured interviews of a sample recruited from stakeholder organizations in the Klamath River Basin. Results indicate that previous negative experiences did not translate into nonparticipation; divisions within seemingly aligned stakeholder organizations encouraged some stakeholders to participate and others to actively oppose negotiations; stakeholders' perceptions of power differentials encouraged both stakeholder participation and exclusion in negotiations; and concerns about relationship development during negotiations suggest that relationship building may be viewed as part of the negotiation process.

The following research examines current approaches to corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the knowledge intensive services sector of industry. The primary aim of this research is the development of a conceptual framework that informs the development and continuous review of the CSR process for businesses that operate in these sectors. It is anticipated that the framework can also play a role in facilitating compliance with section 172 of the Companies Act in the United Kingdom. To enhance the prospect of achieving the primary research aim the following supplementary objectives were also identified: 1) To critically evaluate current approaches to CSR in the knowledge intensive services sector. 2) To determine the appetite and expectation for stakeholder focused governance in the knowledge intensive services sector. 3) To evaluate responses to constraining and enabling characteristics of CSR in the knowledge intensive services sector. 4) To explore the potential role and implications of a CSR guidance framework for the knowledge intensive services sector. This research utilises a multiple case study approach with a focus on three case study subjects, each of whom are market leaders in their respective (knowledge intensive services) sectors of industry and each of whom have demonstrated significant investment and success in their approaches to CSR to date. Qualitative methodology was employed to collect the primary data whilst quantitative methods were employed for the collection of supplementary data for the purposes of triangulation. Using grounded theory methodology, the qualitative data was analysed and the findings conceptualised and coded. This resulted in four key categories being identified and linked to a core category and forms the basis of the ultimate framework. Grounded theory analysis also accounts for the compilation of the supplementary propositions which accompany the framework. This research evidences an acceptance of the need for a more stakeholder focused approach to corporate governance in the knowledge intensive services sector and the resultant framework provides a pathway through which this can be achieved.

Hållbarhet och hållbar utveckling är mycket aktuella frågor idag och detta betonas inte minst i Förenta Nationernas Globala mål. Denna studie syftar till att identifiera och kartlägga hur personer förhåller sig till hållbarhet, hållbarhetskommunikation samt Traderas hållbarhetskommunikation. Målet är att tillföra till forskning kring hållbarhetskommunikationens nutida utmaningar i Sverige samt utforska betydelsen av hållbarhetskommunikation för organisationer idag. I denna uppsats har en enkätundersökning används som metod för att kartlägga attityder och beteenden gentemot hållbarhet och hållbarhetskommunikation. Denna studie uppvisar resultat som visar på att personer i hög grad anser att hållbarhet är viktigt samt även ofta gör aktiva val att konsumera hållbart. Studien visar även på att personer i äldre åldersgrupper i högre grad än personer i lägre åldersgrupper tycker att hållbarhet är viktigt samt gör aktivt hållbara val i sin konsumtion. De respondenter som angett att de i hög grad aktivt väljer att konsumera hållbart är även mer mottagliga för organisationers hållbarhetskommunikation. Traderas kommunikation har inte lett till att personer i stor grad ser dem som en relevant hållbar aktör, dock är de som använt Traderas plattform mer benägna att se Tradera som en hållbar aktör. Vidare dras slutsatsen att hållbarhet är en viktig fråga som organisationer bör förhålla sig till, samt att de framtida kommunikationsutmaningarna blir att skapa positiva attityder gentemot hållbarhet som leder till ett hållbart konsumtionsbeteende bland personer.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is an emerging concept that continues to play a controversial role in the business world. Different CSR theories and ethical foundations inform different approaches to embedding socially responsible behavior into today's business functions. As technology, globalization, and economic challenges change the corporate world, the meaning and application of CSR also changes. While no empirical evidence of CSR's impact on performance exists, many corporations operate under the assumption that CSR holds significant value. This study examines the framing of CSR in stories published by leading business magazines between 2008 and 2012. By examining the presentation of CSR concepts, the resulting analysis can provide important conclusions for corporations, public relations practitioners, mass media, and consumers. This study resulted in a hierarchical pyramid of frames that organizes the framing of CSR in business magazines into three layers: category, motivation, and classification as either responsible behavior or irresponsible behavior. These results lead to recommendations for future CSR research, including the need for quantitative evidence of a connection or disconnection between CSR and profitability.

Agriculture based livelihoods in arid and semi-arid areas encompass limited physical resources and evolving relationships between environment, population and the state. Northwest China encounters constant socio-economic changes, changing climate, agriculture and land practices and political relations that impact the social-ecological system. This thesis investigates how policy, environmental changes and local action interact with each other and affect the livelihoods and determine the environment in the Shiyang River Basin. Focusing on increasingly severe water crisis, environment degradation and endangered livelihoods that define arid and semi-arid environment, this thesis examines local people's perceptions of and interaction with their environment and water-related interventions in the Shiyang River Basin, a typical inland arid area in Northwest China. In 12-months fieldwork, mixed methods were used including semi-structured interviews, questionnaires, group discussions and participant observation. This research explicitly applying a socio-ecological system lens shows that people's perceptions of water crises can be highly divergent, regarding access to and control over local water resources and the roles of internal and external interventions. A wide range of factors result in uneven access to resources and inequitable consequences across space and even within local communities. In the Chinese contexts, personal experiences together with geographical factor, lands area and income levels have significant impacts on villagers' water perceptions. Political trust, social capital and collective action play a key role in the understanding, implementation processes and outcomes of government-enforced water reforms at local levels. This research is the first known study to use the tools of social analysis to examine water, society and the state interactions and their consequences on governance of the irrigation commons, local livelihoods and sustainability in rural China. It shows the everyday water struggle over water control, access and economic opportunities among different water stakeholders. Although a majority of population still depend on irrigated agriculture for their livelihoods, the future of agriculture in studied basin or in China generally is uncertain as farmers migrate, the population ages and next generations become better educated and migrate to the city. This thesis enables a new perspective on the global water management debate within a context where research has stresses the natural and technocratic approaches and creates new opportunities for more effective and appropriate governance of common pool resources. Interdisciplinary understanding regarding stakeholder perceptions, water resources management and environmental change are enriched. Potential barriers and solutions are transferable to other regions and countries where water crises are accelerating due to population growth, urbanization, industrialization, agriculture and economic development, climate change and other socio-political changes.

This Master Thesis copes with current phenomenon - Corporate social responsibility and as a base it uses the Stakeholder theory. The Thesis continues with defining the concept of Corporate social responsibility in general and then devotes small part to present activities under Corporate social responsibility which aims mainly at external stakeholders of an organization. Nevertheless the core of this Thesis is an interconnection between Corporate social responsibility and human resources management which is later on examined from several different points of view and an overview of tools that work with this interconnection is given. It also describes employees from the stakeholder perspective, follows with investigating corporate social responsibility aspects within individual personnel activities in an organization and confronts them with real attitudes of Czech university students.

“Vattenfrågan har alltid varit viktig på Gotland” (Bastani et al. 2015, p. 25)  - “Water questions have always been important on Gotland”. Contrary to the common perception that water shortage does not pose a problem to northern European countries, the case on Gotland provides the example that it is a real issue. Due to several factors, the Swedish island faces severe water shortages during the summer and is in urgent need to address this in the light of an expected growing number of people coming to Gotland. Since water is a topic affecting a wide range of stakeholders, the water issue is already in the focus of attention and occasionally passionately discussed on the island. The aim of this paper was to identify with the help of qualitative research how relevant stakeholder groups perceive and address the water shortage on Gotland. The identified stakeholder groups were from the administrative/political sectors, industrial/business sectors, the research sector as well as engaged citizens. During the research it became clear that the water shortage can be characterized as a wicked problem, which in its nature is impossible to solve but only manageable due to its complexity. Yet, the majority of stakeholders did not recognize the wicked problem as such which explains the multiplicity of existent strategies for how to deal with it. The different approaches lead to outcomes that seem to only address parts of the problem but fail to manage it in its entirety. The study suggests that institutional voids, meaning a lack of clear responsibilities regarding who should manage the problem and how seem to both arise from and contribute to the complexity of the problem. As result of this research, it seems crucial to firstly gain a comprehensive understanding of the situation and then work with multi stakeholder communication and cooperation against prevailing institutional voids in order to address the water shortage effectively.

Ce travail porte sur la gouvernance mutualiste. A partir d’un cadre d’analyse fondé sur la légitimité, nous avons cherché à comprendre comment s’exprime la légitimité en contexte mutualiste aujourd’hui. La proposition faite est qu’il existe nécessairement un gap entre la légitimité construite par les dirigeants et la légitimité perçue par les parties prenantes. Les dirigeants déploient alors des stratégies de légitimation par une communication mutualiste. Le modèle mutualiste deviendrait un outil de gestion des parties prenantes. Dans une phase de recherche quantitative auprès des parties prenantes impliquées, nous identifions un socle commun partagé ainsi qu’un gap mutualiste, qui porte sur la perception que l’entreprise maîtrise son projet et contribue au territoire. Une typologie des parties prenantes est dressée autour d’un clivage horizontal. L’analyse qualitative de discours révèle des systèmes de références sensiblement différents selon les entreprises. Nous distinguons trois approches dans la gestion de la légitimité en contexte mutualiste : communicationnelle, politique et managériale. / This work concerns the mutualist governance. From a frame of analysis based on legitimacy theory, we tried to understand how appears legitimacy in mutual organisation context today. The proposal is that it exists inevitably a gap between the legitimacy built by managers and the legitimacy perceived by the stakeholders. Managers display then strategies of legitimization by a communication based on mutualist references. The mutualist model would become a management tool. In a phase of quantitative research with the involved stakeholders, we identify a common base shared between stakeholders, as well as a mutualist gap, which concerns the perception that the company masters its projet and contributes to the territory. A typology of the stakeholders is drawn up around a horizontal split. The qualitative analysis of speech reveals different patterns, based on communication, politics and management.

The goal of this paper is to study and compare the usage of banknotes and coins in Japan and Sweden during the time period 1980–2015. Using the stakeholder theory, a theory that operationalizes the identification of different actors, stakeholders, and their influences, the development of the banknote and coin usage will be studied. Three different stakeholders are then identified for both countries, the central banks, the banks, and the customers. These stakeholders background and ability to influence are then analyzed. It becomes clear that the customers are the most important stakeholder because they are the stakeholder from which the demand and supply for banknotes and coins arises from. The background in Sweden contra Japan concludes that the japanese customers have less trust in the banks and central banks, which leads them to prefer banknotes and coins over other payment alternatives, while the case in Sweden is the opposite. Therefore, the banknote and coin usage is high in Japan, while it is low in Sweden.

The increasing global challenges, such as natural disasters, poverty and many others, pose new threats to societies and businesses. Therefore, companies increase their engagement in Corporate Sustainability (CS), which connects social, environmental and economic responsibilities. Through this approach, CS aims at overcoming environmental and social constraints in a business context to increase competitiveness in today’s fast-changing world. This fast pace, with which the business environment changes, is related to external influences, such as the above-mentioned climate change, and to fundamental structural developments. One of those is the increasing number of emerging-market companies (EMNCs) that internationalize rapidly through cross-border M&A deals, also into developed markets. Since both trends, the increase in CS engagement and the growing international M&A activity of EMNCs, gain in practical and academic importance, we conducted our study under the following research question. How is CS integrated on a strategic level after a cross-border acquisition by an EMNC? The theoretical angle from which we approached the topic aligns with the resource-based view, including the natural-resource-based view, and a stakeholder perspective. When reviewing the literature regarding CS, it became clear that substantial outcomes are still lacking despite an increasing commitment to CS. This difficulty can be linked to the variety of interpretations regarding the conception of CS and the resulting confusion among implicated parties. The review of M&A literature, with a special focus on EMNCs, revealed that these companies deploy a unique approach, which is characterized by the soft post-M&A integration of the target to allow organizational learning within both businesses. Therefore, our empirical research aimed at exploring how the strategic CS of both companies, the target and the parent, influence each other and thus, develop towards a common CS strategy. The longitudinal single case study we selected, allowed us to investigate this research proposal. Through the collection and analysis of documentary data enriched by semi-structured interviews, our study revealed the following. The exchange of knowledge and CS-related communication represented the basis for the integration of strategic CS as it nurtures organizational learning. Consequently, the CS strategies of both companies increased in maturity, which means that their sophistication evolved. In addition, we also found that the target developed towards a more permissive sustainability to align with its parent company’s CS strategy. Our main study contributions relate to an enhancement of the theoretical knowledge in the related fields. Besides this, we also identified critical practical issues, such as the importance of establishing a common conception of CS to ensure a successful CS integration on a strategic level.