Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a subject that has gained more attention over the last two decades, and it is seen today as an integral part of the core strategy of many companies. The subject often involves a balancing act between many stakeholder interests, where employees often are mentioned as a main stakeholder group. The primary purpose of this degree project is to get a deeper understanding of managers’ perceptions of CSR’s impact on intrinsic and extrinsic employee motivation. Furthermore, this study fills the purpose of investigating perceptions about the effect of different CSR activities on intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. The study was conducted with the Swedish branch of Sodexo. Sodexo is globally considered a world leader in the service industry with over 419 000 employees in 80 countries, known for their well-developed and effective CSRwork. Current literature regarding CSR on the micro level (individual level and employee level) is still in an early stage which helped us to recognize a research gap. Similar studies to ours have not been concerned with getting a deeper understanding of the manager’s perceptions of CSR’s impact on employee motivation. This study was conducted using a mixed-method, which means that it consists of a qualitative part and a quantitative part where we discover how CSR activities towards employees, suppliers, the community, shareholders and customers affects employees’ extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. In the qualitative study, we conducted eight semi-structured interviews with managers from different departments and different hierarchical levels of Sodexo. These interviews helped us to gain a better understanding of how managers perceive the impact of CSR on employee motivation, and how they value the effect of different CSR activities on employee motivation. We used a thematic network analysis in order to interpret the results, which generated five themes: communication, strategic planning, diversity, working environment, and stakeholders. Our results demonstrated that managers perceived CSR activities towards the employees, the local community, and customers as intrinsic motivators. Also, Sodexo’s managers considered CSR activities towards employees and the local community as extrinsic motivators. However, interviewees disregarded CSR activities towards shareholders as a motivator towards the employees. Lastly, we received mixed-results regarding their perceptions of how CSR activities towards suppliers affected their employees’ motivation. For the quantitative part of our study, we surveyed employees at Sodexo in order to understand what motivates them. We used a multiple regression analysis which showed that CSR activities towards employees, shareholders, and customers positively impacts the intrinsic motivation of employees. Also, we discovered that CSR activities towards employees positively impacts the extrinsic motivation amongst employees. We argue that our findings indicate that CSR is a useful tool for increasing employee motivation, and thereby can lead to long-term competitive advantage. When comparing the results of our quantitative and qualitative studies through triangulation, one can see that there is perceptional differences and similarities between managers and employees. Our findings suggest that managers have the same perceptions as their employees regarding the effect of CSR activities conducted towards customers and employees on employee motivation. Also, our findings reveal a perceptual mismatch between managers and employees regarding the effects of employee motivation in regards to CSR activities conducted towards the community and shareholders

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This report discusses the subject of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and CSR communication at Stadium. The study’s purpose is to study the role of sustainability in corporate social responsibility. This is executed through studying how Stadium chooses to communicate their sustainability practices externally. Furthermore, the report studies if and how Stadium’s CSR message reaches student consumers, and how it affects their opinions and consumer behavior. The gathered material is analyzed through the concept of CSR, reputation management and stakeholder theory. Our result shows that Stadium utilizes CSR as a business strategy, wants to contribute to a better society as well as gaining a more positive reputation. Stadium communicate the same sustainability information through the same communication channels to all stakeholders.We found that the student consumers are not reached by Stadium’s sustainability communication, and this is a contributing factor to why their opinions and consumer behavior at Stadium is unaffected. However, differences of opinion about whether sustainability practices affect the students’ view of Stadium arose - some would be affected by more sustainability information and for some it is rather a matter of price when making a purchase. The students believe that they would be better reached by Stadium’s sustainability message if it was communicated in stores. The report shows that sustainability is important for student consumers and also that inadequate communication decreases their opportunity to shop sustainably. It is less likely that a company’s reputation is affected in a positive way if sustainability is not adequately communicated / Uppsatsen behandlar företags sociala ansvar (CSR) och CSR-kommunikation på Stadium. Studiens syfte är att undersöka vilken roll hållbarhet har inom CSR. Detta görs genom att undersöka hur Stadium väljer att kommunicera sitt CSR-arbete externt, med fokus på hållbarhetsaspekten. Vidare undersöker studien huruvida Stadiums budskap når konsumentgruppen studenter och hur det i så fall påverkar konsumenternas åsikter och köpbeteende. Syftet uppnås genom att besvara tre frågeställningar med hjälp av intervjuer med representanter från Stadium samt student-fokusgupper. Det insamlade materialet från intervjuer och fokusgrupper analyseras utifrån CSR-konceptet, reputation management och stakeholder theory. Resultatet av undersökningen påvisar att Stadium vill bidra till ett bättre samhälle samt använder CSR som företagsstrategi, och vill att CSR-arbetet skall påverka sitt anseende positivt. Stadium kommunicerar samma hållbarhetinformation genom samma kommunikationskanaler till alla Stadiums intressenter (ex. genom hemsidan).Vidare framkom att studentkonsumenterna inte nås av Stadiums hållbarhetskommunikation, och att detta är en bidragande faktor till varför deras åsikter och köpbeteende på Stadium inte påverkas. Dock framkommer delade meningar huruvida studenternas syn på Stadium och beteende påverkas av hållbarhetsarbete - vissa skulle påverkas genom att få mer information och för vissa är det en prisfråga huruvida man handlar hållbart eller ej. Studenterna anser att de skulle nås bättre om hållbarhetsarbetet kommunicerades ut i butiksmiljön. Avslutningsvis visar studien på att hållbarhet är viktigt för studentkonsumenterna men att bristande kommunikation minskar deras möjlighet att handla hållbart. Det är mindre troligt att ett företags anseende påverkas positivt om hållbarhet inte kommuniceras tillräckligt.

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Value co-creation enhances employers' branding through the engagement of organisations' corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities and employees' behaviours, such as performance, loyalty and satisfaction. Although a growing body of research has explored the notion of value co-creation, the current understanding of the interrelationship between value co-creation and corporate social responsibility is underdeveloped. There is fierce academic debate surrounding the concept of value co-creation, calling for further theoretical and empirical work on this field. Furthermore, the concept of employer branding is still a nascent area in management and marketing scholarships and requires further conceptual nourishment. Although significant studies have covered the role of organisations and consumers in value co-creation resulting in employer branding, there has been little research to address the role of employees in value co-creation, dictating further assessment of their role in the process of value co-creation and participation in employer branding in a CSR context. Therefore, this thesis seeks to identify and analyse how, and to what extent, efforts to become socially responsible can co-create value for internal stakeholders and contribute to employer branding. As such, part of the theoretical foundation for this research is built on CSR. Subsequently, relevant conceptual avenues pertaining to the co-creation of value, corporate branding and employer branding are explored and analysed. An extensive literature review is undertaken to inform the robust development of an initially proposed conceptual framework of the main factors that impact upon this process. The proposed conceptual framework has set a broad guide for the researcher regarding the empirical fieldwork involved. The context for the research explores the notion of value co-creation within employer branding in the Omani hotel sector. To analyse value co-creation in depth, a qualitative interpretive multi-case study approach is adopted. The research also considers aspects of managerial philosophies and employees' perceptions regarding their organisations' current and future CSR activities, and how these activities impact value co-creation for stakeholders. The findings indicate that value co-creation has three major elements - it is dynamic and iterative, it requires dialogical interactions among various parties, and it leads to dualistic outcomes. The adoption of CSR increases the employees' satisfaction, whereas a lack of understanding of the CSR activities leads to the co-destruction of value, which in return affects the organisational turn-over in the long run. Therefore, creating awareness about the importance of the implementation of CSR is considered crucial, as it will benefit the organisation and improve the level of performance and loyalty of the internal stakeholders. The researcher proposes an original conceptual model on this tripartite nature of value co-creation and an analysis of how value co-creation can lead to the development of sustainable and socially responsible employer branding. An employee-oriented perspective towards value co-creation is introduced as an endeavour to enrich the area of research and address current conceptual deficiencies. The research also advances scholarship by critically assessing the role of employees as an independent but integral entity in the value co-creation process, establishing clear and robust links between CSR, value cocreation and employer branding.

Abstract Problem background and problem discussion: The increased demands on companies and their ability to operate sustainably has made corporate social responsibility (CSR) a very hot topic in modern society. The academic debate has yet to put a definite answer on whether the engagement in CSR activities has a positive effect on a company financially. Previous research on stock listed in Sweden indicate that there is a positive relationship between environmental performance and that there is an asymmetry in how it is valued across company sizes. However, there has not yet been any research made into what impact size has on the value relevance of social CSR ratings. This will be tested by drawing from resource-based theory and legitimacy theory. Research question: How is the value relevance of social ratings affected by accounting for company size? Purpose: The purpose is to examine what effect the inclusion of corporation size has on the value relevance of social CSR ratings. Theory: The study primarily utilizes Stakeholder theory, the resource-based theory and legitimacy theory. Method: This is a quantitative study in a panel data setting with a deductive research approach. The practical method is a regression analysis that assesses the value relevance of CSR measures at the OMX Stockholm for the years of 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2011 and 2013. The study encompasses 349 Small-, medium- and large-sized companies and has a total of 1429 observations, which have been subject to statistical significance tests. Results and analysis: The results show that social, environmental and overall CSR ratings are value relevant and associated with lower market values. There also seems to be little impact on results by including company size as a variable. Furthermore the results of this study differ from previous research, implying that results are very sensitive to changes in the regression model. Conclusion: The results of the study lead us to believe that size has little impact on how value relevant social ratings are. This implies that regardless theory such as the resource-based and legitimacy theory these cannot be supported in practice among Swedish firms listed at OMX Stockholm. Furthermore, our method gives different results with regard to previous research done on the Swedish market and indicates that there is a negative relationship between CSR ratings and market value.

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Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has increased its presence in the business world, both due to the pressure of expectations from society to act responsibly as well as a rise in laws and regulation connected to CSR. As the world moves towards a greater focus on sustainability and social justice, the various kinds of businesses need to adjust themselves, where the concept of CSR can successfully be adopted to be prepared for these changes. In addition to CSR, stakeholder theory and instrumental stakeholder theory have been applied to answer the research question:   How do larger housing associations in northern Sweden work with CSR and how does CSR affect their performance?   Previous academic research regarding CSR in the housing market has not been very clear or distinct as there has been a scarce amount of research on this specific area. Earlier research done on CSR in the housing market could in this thesis therefore only be used as a minor point of departure. The goal with this thesis was thus to contribute to an extended knowledge referring if CSR can be a sufficient factor for housing associations performance. As the thesis is focused more on a deeper understanding of the subject, a qualitative research methodology has been employed. As for the data collection, semi-structured interviews have been conducted with four major housing associations in northern Sweden through online meetings and phone interviews. By choosing this type of data collection, the study could be more efficient in collecting the  data.    Our findings indicate that CSR can lead to both positive and negative performance-related consequences for a housing association. The lack of a shared approach towards CSR between the housing association and a stakeholder can result in disagreements with the stakeholder. Following and maintaining the advised and required reporting structure can lead to additional administrative costs and time needed. Two positive effects as a result of CSR that were generally perceived were how environmentally friendly materials and methods in the construction process led to reduced costs in the long-term, and how an ethical employee well-being program resulted in low sickness rates and staff turnover. Other positive effects were creating a strategic advantage in the form of brand loyalty through the use of ethical relationships towards their customers, as well as a perceived better profitability as a result of CSR usage.

This study investigates accountability and transparency issues in the management of oil and gas (O&G) revenues in Ghana through public discourse. It establishes the factors that influence accountability and investigates how accountability is discharged amongst stakeholders in the O&G industry in Ghana, with respect to contemporary accountability theories. The thesis develops a contextualised analytical framework drawing on Dhanani and Connolly’s (2012), and Gray et al.’s (1996) conceptualisations of accountability, in addition to other contemporary accountability concepts, mirrored through the ethical variant of stakeholder theory to classify, analyse and interpret the issues of transparency and accountability in revenue management in the O&G industry in Ghana. It uses this framework to analyse and interpret questionnaires and interviews of stakeholders in the O&G industry in Ghana; these include the government, civil society groups and upstream oil companies. The thesis establishes that the accountability relationships (strategic, financial, fiduciary and procedural) between accountees and accountors in the O&G industry in Ghana are hierarchical, bureaucratic and fussy, making the discharge of accountability unintelligent, ineffective and vulgate and only routinely given for cosmetic purposes. Consequently, the accountors in the O&G industry in Ghana employ the positive variant of the stakeholder theory, motivated by legitimisation practices to regularise their activities, contrary to the expected ethical variant of the theory. The outcome reflects the practices of for-profit organisations such as upstream O&G companies, but conflicts with the government’s fiduciary responsibilities towards citizens and the espoused communal values of the legal and regulatory framework of the industry. Current perspectives on positive stakeholder and legitimacy theory therefore appear to explain existing stakeholder relationships and how accountability is discharged in the O&G industry in Ghana. The thesis contributes to the public accountability and transparency literature in a number of ways: First, the study presents an empirical basis to advance discourse about accountability and transparency in natural resource management in developing countries, by developing a contextualised theoretical and analytical framework drawing on Dhanani and Connolly’s (2012) and Gray et al’s (1996) accountability concepts, and using the ethical stakeholder theory as a lens for interpretation. Second, it provides an empirical basis for rethinking the hierarchical managerialist approach to accountability suggested by the positive variant of the stakeholder theory and its legitimisation mechanisms between accountees and the accountors in the O&G industry in Ghana, and suggests the adoption of the ethical variant of the stakeholder theory with its moral imperatives. Third, the study provides significant insight into governance issues in Sub-Saharan Africa that could inform policy formulation for the region by international bodies, including the United Nations Development Fund (UNDP), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), by critically reviewing accountability and transparency issues in the oil sectors in Angola, Nigeria and the DRC and juxtaposing this evidence with empirical findings for Ghana. Finally, it advances understanding of the public accountability practices and transparency issues in the O&G industry in Ghana, while pointing out significant governance implications for policy-makers, civil society and advocacy groups, think-tanks, the O&G companies and academics.

<p>Sammanfattning</p><p>Idén att företag liksom andra slags organisationer har intressenter, vars krav måste tillgodoses, har numera blivit allmänt accepterad inom organisationsteori och företagsekonomi. Det innebär att the stakeholder theory, på svenska intressentmodellen, är ett centralt tema i litteratur och handböcker inom företagsekonomi och affärsetik. Emellertid ges orden intressent, intressentmodell och intressentteori olika innebörd även om samma termer nyttjas. Förklaringar ges med olika argument och stöd som emellanåt kan vara motsägelsefulla samtidigt som modellens varianter med sina respektive konsekvenser inte alltid tydliggörs.</p><p>I denna studie fokuserar jag på den normativa kärnan i en tidig version av stakeholder theory formulerad av Donaldson och Preston (1995) och diskuterar hur den i en alternativ version kommit att få en annan innebörd. Transformationen kan förklaras med att en av de grundläggande utgångspunkterna, rationalitet, ges olika innebörd. Syftet med studien är inte bara att undersöka huruvida utan även att argumentera för och visa att en senare version av intressentmodellen, som tar sin grund i en formell eller instrumentell rationalitet, har kommit att dominera över den - av kantiansk etik inspirerade - tidigare versionen som utgår från en expressiv rationalitet. Detta syfte uppnås genom att undersöka förekomsten av en etisk dimension i ett antal svenska börsnoterade företags miljöredovisningar. Som ett komplement har även analyserats i vilken utsträckning urvalets årsredovisningar innehåller den för teorin centrala termen intressent och vilken innebörd företagen ger denna term.</p>