Titel: Corporate Social Responsibility och Goodwill Impairment: Sambandet mellan CSR och goodwillnedskrivningar. En kvantitativ studie på 703 noterade europiska företag under 2022.   Nivå: C-uppsats i ämnet företagsekonomi   Författare: Jawad Taqwaei & Fuad Anuar Ali   Handledare: Jan Svanberg   Datum: 2023 – Januari   Syfte: Syftet med studien är att undersöka om nivån av CSR påverkar goodwillnedskrivningar i europiska börsnoterade företag.   Metod: Studien utgår från en positivistisk forskningsfilosofi med en hypotetisk-deduktiv ansats. Studien har en kvantitativ strategi och en tvärsnittsdesign som genomförts med data på 703 noterade europiska företag, för året 2022. Studien baseras på sekundära data inhämtad från databasen Refinitiv Eikon. Data har analyserats i två statistikprogram SPSS och MINITAB.   Resultat & slutsats: Studiens resultat visar inget samband mellan hållbarhet och goodwillnedskrivningar. Undersökningen visar inget samband mellan att socialt ansvarsfulla företag är benägna att ha mindre goodwillnedskrivningar. Dessutom finner undersökningen inget samband mellan att socialt oansvarsfulla tenderar ha mindre storlek på goodwillnedskrivningsposten. Inget samband mellan hållbarhet och goodwillnedskrivningar är därefter någonting som verkar sammanträffa med tanke på de brister ESG-betygen har som mått på hållbarhet, samt de institutionella skillnaderna mellan Amerikas och Europas börsnoterade marknad som har en påverkan på sambandet.   Examensarbetets bidrag: Bidraget sker genom att undersöka om sambandet mellan variablerna CSR och goodwillnedskrivningar skiljer sig åt mellan kontinenterna Nordamerika (USA) och Europa. På så sätt öka kunskapen och förhoppningsvis bidra med mer förståelse till hur sambandet utformar sig världen över (med tanke på de institutionella skillnaderna).    Förslag till fortsatt forskning: Framtida studier kan belysa andra faktorer som påverkar sannolikheten eller manipulering av goodwillnedskrivningar. Genomföra longitudinell design i utbyte för tvärsnittsdesign och exkludera England i urvalet.   Nyckelord: CSR, ESG, Goodwill Impairment och Stakeholder Theory, Socialt ansvar / Title: Corporate Social Responsibility and Goodwill Impairment: The relationship between CSR and Goodwill Impairment. A quantitative study of 703 listed European companies in 2022.    Level: Final assignment for bachelor’s degree in business administration   Author: Jawad Taqwaei & Fuad Anuar Ali    Supervisor: Jan Svanberg   Date: 2023 – January   Aim: The purpose of the study is to investigate whether the level of CSR affects Goodwill Impairment in European listed companies.   Method: The study is assuming a positivistic research philosophy with a hypothetical-deductive approach. The study has a quantitative approach and a cross-sectional design implemented with data of 703 listed European companies, for the year 2022. The study is based on secondary data from the database Refinitiv Eikon. The data has been analyzed in two statistical programs: SPSS and MINITAB.   Result & Conclusion: The study's results show no connection between sustainability and Goodwill Impairment. The study shows no association between socially responsible companies tending to have less Goodwill Impairments. In addition, the study finds no association between the fact that socially irresponsible firms tend to have a smaller magnitude of Goodwill Impairment. No association between sustainability and Goodwill Impairment is subsequently something that seems to coincide given the shortcomings of ESG ratings as a measure of sustainability, as well as the institutional differences between America's and Europe's listed markets that have an impact on the association.   Contribution of the thesis: The contribution is made by examining whether the relationship between the variables CSR and Goodwill Impairment differs between the continents of North America (USA) and Europe. In this way, increase knowledge and hopefully contribute with more understanding to how the connection takes shape worldwide (considering the institutional differences). Suggestion for future research: Future studies may highlight other factors that influence the likelihood or manipulation of goodwill impairments. Conduct longitudinal design in exchange for cross-sectional design and exclude England from the sample. Key word: CSR, ESG, Goodwill Impairment, Stakeholder Theory and Sustainability.

This thesis sets out to examine whether there is a relationship between financial performance and CSR in fashion companies. Furthermore, there are significant regional differences in different markets; for instance, the European Union aims to counter the negative impact of fast fashion as part of a grander plan to become climate neutral by 2050. Therefore, a regional comparison is of particular interest as environmental regulations are increasing. Since the USA and the EU are home to the largest and most valuable brands to date, these regions will be examined in this thesis. This relationship is measured by using ESG scores as a proxy for CSR. The results stipulate that the relationship between financial performance and CSR activities is weak. Nevertheless, regional context is found to be a significant moderator variable in this relationship. The results indicate that CSR practices are more important in terms of financial performance in the EU.

This paper concerns the human rights aspect to tourism, more precisely the tour operator’s impact on human rights. It has become evident that companies within the industry are increasingly expected to also include the negative impacts on people’s human rights in their business. Not only because human rights matter but because the tourism industry is regarded to be next in line for a more careful examination on its negative effects. This study will therefore be an attempt to contribute towards this end by applying a stakeholder approach to the tour operator’s activities. I have chosen to examine the Swedish tour operator Apollo because they are already engaged in the debate and have expressed an ambition to lead the development of responsible tourism. The study shows that the result of their engagement so far is limited in scope because the company has not fully included all participants to their business as stakeholders. And therefore is human rights only partly incorporated in the company’s work toward corporate responsibility.

This dissertation explores the relationship between governance quality, accumulated wealth, and organizational performance in U.S. nonprofits. Accumulated wealth in nonprofits has been previously shown to reduce overall support contributions because donors perceive less need for financial resources. Further, the absence of owners leads to weaker monitoring mechanisms and greater agency problems. Despite the size of the nonprofit sector (5.5% of GDP and 9% of employment), the impact of governance in organizations with accumulated wealth has not been studied much. Using recent data on governance practices at nonprofits reported on IRS Form 990’s and structural equation modeling/partial least squares analysis, this study finds that the strength of governance practices in nonprofits reduces the negative impact of accumulated wealth in Arts, Education, Environment, Health, Higher Education, Hospitals, Human Services, International, and Religious organizations. This paper demonstrates how agency theory and stakeholder theory complement each other when the nonprofit business model has a traditional revenue structure similar to its for-profit counterpart. For practitioners, it shows that combining a strong governing body, governing policies, compensation policies, and transparency policies, helps hold management accountable. This is necessary for the more efficient and effective execution of a nonprofit’s mission. / Business Administration/Finance

Yes / This paper critically revisits the debate on natural resource rent, curse and conflict, interrogating some of the key assumptions that have become received knowledge in extant discourses. The paper demonstrates how orthodox theories’ preoccupation with issues of resource rent and resource curse tend to be marred by slants of ahistoricity and state-centricity. Adopting a stakeholder approach to the issues of resource rent and conflict in Africa, the author argues that natural resource rents produce and attract a multiplicity of competitive stakeholders, both domestic and external, in the resource-rich states. The competition and jostling of stakeholders for access to, and appropriation of, rentier resources is too often an antagonistic process in many emerging economies that has consequences and implications for violent conflict. The paper attempts a new conceptual explanation of how natural resource rents dialectically generate stakes, stakeholders and political conflict. The paper concludes by proposing the need for the more conflict-prone African rentier states to transition to a more functional state model, the transformative state.

The past several years the environmental pressure on companies have increased. Both regarding their impact on the external environment, and on the internal environment. The question of gender diversity in the workplace has been a hot topic for decades. Women have historically always been underrepresented in the boardroom, with men traditionally assuming high governing positions. As more women have assumed a place on the board of directors, factors such as the transparency has increased. Raising the question on whether the increased number of women within decision-making position shas something to do with achieving higher ESG scores.  The purpose of the study is to investigate if there is a relationship between the proportion of women on the board of directors and the ESG scores of listed companies in Europe. Moreover, also study whether the critical ratio of three or more women on the board have any significant effect on the score. The companies included in the study has had at least one ESG score between 2018 – 2022. Four research questions lay ground for four hypotheses, each intended to investigate the relationship between ESG and women on the board of directors.  What was found was a highly significant relationship between the % of women on the board of directors and the ESG score. Breaking it down, all three pillars are highly affected by the ratio of women. The most affected, however, is the governance pillar due to the relationship with board diversity, and transparency towards investors and other stakeholders. These results are supported by previous studies studying the same phenomenon. A significant relationship was also found between the % of women and the ESGC score, meaning the ESG score including possible controversies the company is, or has been, involved in. The difference in effect between the effect on ESG- and ESGC score is not significant, however. Meaning there is nothing saying that women have an increased effect on keeping companies out of scandals involving ESG factors. Moreover, the critical ratio theory is supported by this study. With companies with three or more women on their board of directors scoring significantly higher ESG score than those without.  A conclusion of this study is hence that having more women on the board of directors can increase the work towards ESG matters, and thus also the ESG score due to several different reasons. This further supports the inclusion of gender quotas within companies and institutions.

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This dissertation sought to develop a grounded theory explaining how ENGOs assess the environmental performance of firms, select target industries and firms, and influence those targeted industries and firms. A preliminary model based on research in the fields of social movements, neo-institutional theory, stakeholder theory, and corporate social performance was developed. The model contained 21 propositions: seven regarding assessment, nine regarding targeting, and five regarding influencing. Interviews were conducted with 33 representatives of five ENGOs: Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), Greenpeace, Environmental Defense (ED), World Resources Institute (WRI), and Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). NRDC and WRI served as pilot studies. NRDC, Greenpeace, and ED were considered case studies for the purpose of drawing inferences about the propositions. Insufficient interviews were conducted at WRI and UCS to draw inferences from them; however, data from these interviews was included in the dissertation to the extent it provided additional support for the inferences drawn. Qualitative methods were used to analyze the data. Results regarding the propositions were presented, as well as additional findings going beyond the propositions. A grounded theory of how ENGOs assess, target, and influence firms was developed based on the results; a model to accompany the grounded theory was also developed. / Ph. D.

Bankruptcies define the ending of a firm and they have been increasing in recent years. Because of the tantalizing consequences bankruptcy gives rise to, it is in numerous parties’ interest to mitigate the risks. Several factors such as liquidity, leverage and profitability have an impact on the financial health of firms. With rise in interest and directive for sustainability and investing responsibly, higher ESG scores have shown to deliver benefits such as decreased bankruptcy risk. Europe is in the lead in sustainability practices and an essential sector for the European market is manufacturing which constitutes a significant part of the continent’s GDP. This sector is particularly sensitive to supply chains and is under increasing scrutiny from regulation and investors. This gave rise to the first purpose of this study which was to examine if it is worth investing in ESG to minimize the risk of bankruptcy for European manufacturers. ESG performance was measured through Refinitiv Eikon’s ESG and pillar scores, while bankruptcy risk was measured through Altman Z-score. By looking at which individual pillars of ESG had the largest and smallest impact on bankruptcy risk, the study’s second purpose could be fulfilled. To conduct the study, 804 firms were studied over a 10-year period between 2013-2022, which resulted in 4,143 firm year observations. All analyses were done with four separate fixed effect regressions, controlling for both macroeconomic-, financial-, market- and size-related variables. The results regarding the first purpose showed that the aggregate ESG score had a negative relationship with bankruptcy risk, which goes to show that increased investing in ESG activities can enhance firm stabilization among European manufacturers. Regarding the second research purpose, the regression results showed that the social dimension had the only significant impact in reducing bankruptcy risk. While the other pillars displayed similar directions, it was not possible to conclude on a relationship between the independent governance or environmental pillar score and bankruptcy risk. However, since the environmental and governance pillars are a part of the aggregate ESG score, the results still imply that the interplay of all the individual pillars can bring stability to firms. As such, the results showed support for two of the theories applied in the study, stakeholder and legitimacy theory, while contradicting the shareholder and agency theory. It is not merely the shareholder profit but rather the stakeholders’ interests that contributes European manufacturers staying afloat. ESG can thus be seen as a way to obtain legitimacy and build the firm stronger, rather than an occurring agency cost between agents and principals.

Background: In 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine and put the world into a state of geopolitical crisis, leading to severe negative spillover effects on the global economy. Corporations were compelled to respond to the geopolitical crisis, while some were indirectly exposed to the war and others directly affected, all corporations had to decide on their strategic actions. Thus, questions arise how and why corporations acted as they did. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to explore how corporations react to a geopolitical crisis, and further explain how they make their strategic decisions. The study adopts a contingency perspective to identify the fundamental basis upon which strategic decisions were made. Additionally, the study tests whether stakeholders’ influences can explain the corporations’ decisions. Method: This study employs a quantitative methodology with a deductive approach in an exploratory and positivistic paradigm. This is done to examine the relationship between corporations’ exposure to Russia, stakeholders’ influences, and strategic decisions regarding the Russia-Ukraine war. Data were gathered from annual reports and various databases, and analyzed using Spearman correlation matrix and linear regression models. Conclusion: The findings show that corporations act differently depending on their contingencies in reaction to a geopolitical crisis. Furthermore, stakeholders influence the strategic decisions in corporations indirectly affected by the geopolitical crisis, however, their influence is diminished in corporations directly impacted. While some stakeholder influences were found on the strategic decisions made by the most severely impacted corporations, other factors seem to ultimately determine the strategic decisions in the directly impacted corporations.