Brexit is the source of changes in the business environment in Europe. The situation generates uncertainty in which direction the United Kingdom wants to take on the decision of leaving the European Union. The situation is unique, the outcome and impact are unknown. The aim of the thesis is to gain profound knowledge and analyze how Swedish forestry industry firms perceive and respond to the uncertainty of Brexit. The reviewed literature present how uncertain business environments affect firms, the perception of uncertainty and strategy that generates a response to uncertainty. The conceptual framework illustrates the process and the connection between the elements. In order to gain profound knowledge on the subject, a qualitative study with an abductive approach was conducted. The applied research design was a multiple-case study that consisted of six cases. The analysis discusses the empirical data with a cross-case examination and pattern matching to the literature in order to identify similarities and differences between the cases. The perceived uncertainty is dependent on several elements and the findings display how changes in the business environment impact firms differently depending on the risk management of the firm, market commitment, information, experience and how the market is valued. These factors influence the process behind the response and the resources that are allocated to the process. The thesis contributes both to the theoretical and practical understanding of uncertainty and how to respond to uncertainty.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) and multinational companies (MNCs) landed in Chinaalmost at the same time. However, the Chinese market where the governmental role is alwaysinfluential provides a specific setting for the CSR development in China. The purpose of thisthesis is to analyze the governmental role in the CSR engagement of SvenskaKullagerfabriken (SKF) in China based on a literature review, qualitative case study, semistructuredinterview and three mini-cases study. By adopting these methods, it is found thatthe Chinese government is trying to provide a more CSR-friendly policy and stricterlegislation in order to guide the Chinese business towards a sustainable direction. Besides, inrecent years, the Chinese government is also re-orienting the social values that are claimingthe return of the traditional business ethics and promoting the level of CSR in the Chinesesociety. A triangulated model is developed in this thesis to analyze the case company. Theexperience of SKF indicates that the company’s CSR strategy is universal, whereas its CSRengagement has changed along with the Chinese development. It is found that there are fourphases of SKF’s CSR development in China, and each phase is associated with andstimulated by the specific scheme during the Chinese social and economic development.Among the variables in Chinese changing society, the macro-policy is deemed by SKF as thekey factor that has the largest impact on the CSR engagement of the company. After thisresearch, the research gap will be filled in with an empirical case. Yet, the future efforts inempirically investigating more companies are suggested to enrich the research on thecorrelation between the Chinese government, CSR development and MNCs in China.