Denna fallstudie berör Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) och den interna kommunikationen av CSR inom finanssektorn. De organisationer studien har applicerats på är Swedbank och Nordea där studien belyser kommunikation av CSR från central nivå till lokal och vise versa. Idag blir företag i större utsträckning än tidigare granskade inom områdena samhällsarbete och hållbarhetsfrågor. Swedbank och Nordea är två stora aktörer inom finanssektorn, en sektor som tidigare setts ha en mer indirekt påverkan än direkt, och verkar för att samhället ska fungera genom in- och utlåning. Den externa kommunikationen från organisationerna bygger på att den interna kommunikationen ska fungera och leda till ett utförande av det som utlovas på hemsidor, CSR-rapporter, hållbarhetspolicys etc. För att undersöka detta har en kvalitativ fallstudie genomförts med intervjuer genomförda på central, regional och lokal nivå inom de både organisationerna. De slutsatser studien kan dra är att de båda organisationerna följer ord till handling och har inkorporerat CSR i den dagliga verksamheten. Vi ser skillnader organisationerna emellan i den interna kommunikationen av CSR där Swedbank har kommit en längre bit på vägen än Nordea. Den försiktiga kommunikationen och en otydlig definition av CSR har lett till att Nordeas anställda har en bristande medvetenhet kring organisationens CSR-arbete. Detta skapar en inkonsistens mellan Nordeas ideologi att de anställda ska ha en medvetenhet kring Nordeas CSR arbete och deras faktiska kommunikation internt. Swedbank har även i detta avseende kommit längre, då de har förenklat definitionen av CSR genom att bryta ned begreppet till mer lättförståeliga delar för de anställda. Det kan ännu diskuteras om CSR har blivit en institutionaliserad norm inom finanssektorn.

Syftet med denna studie är att kartlägga i vilken omfattning samhällsansvar är en del av språkreseföretags verksamhet. Studien är baserad på intervjuer med personer i ledande position inom tre språkreseföretag som finns representerade i Sverige. Den teoretiska referensramen består av ett antal kategorier som är baserade på tidigare forskning om ”Corporate Social Responsibility” (CSR) inom olika typer av turismföretag. Dessa kategorier är ekonomisk, miljömässig och social hållbarhet samt drivkrafter och hinder för turismföretags arbete med samhällsansvar. Studien visar att omfattningen av samhällsansvar inom språkresebranschen är varierande. Företagens roll som enbart mellanhand verkar i många fall påverka omfattningen negativt. I studien framkommer även att det finns uppfattningar om att engagemanget för samhällsansvar i branschen och bland resenärerna är lågt. Att ha uttryckliga policies och riktlinjer kring samhällsansvar verkar inte vara en självklarhet för språkreseföretag. Däremot uppfyller alla deltagande företag vissa kriterier som ingår i att ta samhällsansvar. Detta arbete sker dock ibland omedvetet, det vill säga utan att företagen har vetskap om att aktiviteterna faller inom ramen för samhällsansvar.

The concept of sustainability has become a buzzword in today’s business marketplace. Particularly, the incorporation of sustainability into Supply Chain Management (SCM) has received a great deal of attention from companies of all sizes and even involved a wide range of industries in recent years. Meanwhile, Sustainable Supply Chain Management (SSCM) has been highlighted by academic and corporations. With SSCM, more enterprises have benefited from being sustainable in their daily operations. Although research has made contributions, there is still a lack of understanding on how to achieve sustainable development in SCM. Therefore, the overall purpose of this research is to find out the key success factors for implementing the strategic SSCM. To achieve this target, it is necessary to identify appropriate indicators to measure the sustainable activities and figure out the relationship that combined social and environmental dimensions with supply chain activities. This research focused on Swedish global company. Both summaries of literature review and findings of the case company were analyzed to satisfy the research purpose, as a result, definition of sustainability, implementations in SSCM, and the relationship between sustainability and SCM that are based on the actual situations of the case company were presented. After that, five key success factors for implementing the strategic SSCM have been concluded: (1) SSCM needs to be ensured as a strategy within long-term consideration; (2) Standard management system needs to be complied with daily operations; (3) Communication with stakeholders needs to be increased in the supply chain; (4) Respect for human rights, and provide safety working environment; (5) Control resources usage and reduce negative emission to the environment. Accomplish of this research, on the one hand, it clarified the relationship between sustainability and SCM; on the other hand, it also deepened knowledge about how to achieve a strategic SSCM based on an empirical study in wire and cable manufacturing industry.

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The growing importance of non-market considerations has led multinational corporations to globalize not just production and commercialization but also their corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives as nonmarket strategies. Scholars have shown that CSR can create intangible assets that help companies reduce their foreignness and gain competitive advantages over local rivals. To what extent multinational enterprises (MNEs) can transfer CSR initiatives to other locations is an important question. Prior research, focusing on the transfer of operational initiative, is silent on the transfer of practices that extend beyond the boundaries of the firm to influence the welfare of external stakeholders. This study builds a theory about the conditions that influence success and failure in the transfer of CSR initiatives from headquarters to overseas subsidiaries. Through a case study of an Indian multinational, qualitative data is combined with the formal logic of fuzzy set analysis. The findings reveal that it is the combination of practice characteristics and local contexts that influence the success of practice transfer. Specifically, I explore two characteristics of CSR initiatives that facilitate practice transfer: stakeholder multiplicity and ambiguity. The former denotes the degree to which a CSR initiative can serve more than one stakeholder and the latter denotes the degree to which a CSR initiative can be applied to multiple contexts in different ways. The analysis suggests that stakeholder multiplicity is a predictor of transfer success to countries where coordination among diverse social actors is easy to achieve. In contrast, in high-context culture locations where rapid coordination is less easy to achieve, the ambiguity of CSR initiatives is a more important predictor of transfer success.

This paper aims at providing a deeper understanding about how corporate social responsibility (CSR) can help small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in developing countries, looking at the case of Dominica, to strengthen their position on the international market. Different views and aspects of CSR have been found and analysed in order to show what previous scholars have contributed to the field. The literature that has been reviewed examines the different aspects of the phenomena of CSR in general but also in a more specific area, the Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) region in combination with SMEs and their potential to internationalise. This has resulted in the development of a conceptual framework that shows how all these parts are connected with each other. During this research, an abductive approach has been used, as there is a lack of existing research about the specific case of Dominica in the context of CSR and internationalization. By using semi-structured interviews with local companies to collect a qualitative research, a greater understanding of how CSR is used in such a context can be gained. The collected data was then analysed through the program NVivo, which provided us with an overview of the findings and connected relevant conclusions from the respondents. This showed that the underlying reasons for acting in responsible ways are not to accomplish any CSR goals, but rather because the companies wanted to or their situation forced them, due to for example due to high import taxes and relationships with other firms. After the presentation of the findings, these are linked together with the theory in the analysis chapter, where the similarities and differences found are discussed. The final chapter includes answers to our research questions but also limitations, implications and suggestions for future research. The major finding that has derived from this thesis is that the main CSR activity conducted by Dominican SMEs are environmental. Moreover, there is a significant research gap concerning the phenomenon of CSR in the Latin America and Caribbean region combined with an even bigger knowledge gap regarding CSR among local companies in Dominica. In this thesis, we have researched a phenomenon that is new in regards to the island of Dominica and we therefore argue that this thesis can be of great value to SMEs in Dominica and other developing countries when planning to internationalize their company. Lastly, we claim that this research can aid policy makers and governments to impose regulations, which can help the companies to not only develop, but to contribute to society at the same time.

Beyond the conventional meaning of CSR as a voluntary obligation for enhancing the social, economic and environmental wellness of the society, the developmental-oriented CSR is emerging and requires exploratory and empirical investigations. This research attempts to fill the gap in this direction by examining the Entrepreneurship Development through Corporate Social Responsibility – A Study of the Nigerian Telecommunication Industry. In specific terms, the research seeks deeper understanding of CSR and Entrepreneurship with a view to refocusing both constructs as support mechanisms for small enterprise development in Nigeria. Considering the multidisciplinary nature of this research, an extensive review of literature was carried out which provided deeper insights into the research problem. Arising from the review of literature, the human capital theory and stakeholder theory provided the required theoretical grounding for the study. For easy triangulation, the study adopted a mixed research methods (an amalgam of qualitative and quantitative research methods). The target population for the study was the Nigerian telecommunication industry, which comprised the 24 telecommunication companies and the 65 million proxy telephone users. Lagos state was preferred as the sample location. From the target population, sample sizes of 9 telecommunication companies and 384 telephone users were selected with justifications using purposive sampling and snowballing sampling respectively. The qualitative aspect of research used interview instrument for data collection. The interview data from 9 interviewees were analysed using content and thematic analyses. The quantitative research on the other hand used web-enabled questionnaire instrument for data collection. Out of the 384 telephone users targeted, only 369 responses were analysed, using descriptive and inferential statistics (Chi-Square Test, Friedman Rank Test, Structural Equation Modelling and Multiple Linear Regression Analysis). At end of the investigation, it was found that the stakeholders’ perception of CSR is largely a philanthropic perspective; while the perception of entrepreneurship in the same industry is the act of setting up businesses for self-employment and wealth creation. Furthermore, the dominant CSR activity is sports and entertainments, while entrepreneurship development was poorly supported. With regards to the potentials, the study found that CSR is a potential means for funding entrepreneurship education; funding start-up venture capital for unemployed graduates/trainees; funding business clusters and technology business incubation centres for small businesses; funding purchase of equipment and tools for poor artisans, craftsmen and petty traders in disadvantaged host communities; and also CSR could be an effective instrument for political risk mitigation in hostile communities like Niger-Delta and Northern Nigeria. Finally, it was found that there is a relationship between CSR and entrepreneurship in the Nigerian telecommunication industry, but the predictability of CSR dimensions on entrepreneurship is weak. The study has therefore enriched the literature with an enhanced understanding of CSR incorporating entrepreneurship, as opposed to viewing CSR in terms of social, economic and environmental dimensions. The study concludes with a discussion of the academic and practical implications of the findings as well as recommendations for further research in this multidisciplinary field.

The current system of credit ratings is full of conceptual and administrative flaws with highly rated companies defaulting in the short term. This has led regulators, investors, companies and researchers aiming to improve the system. This thesis details the study of this aim to improve the existing credit ratings system through a conceptual perspective, as well as developing it into a more comprehensive and overarching new corporate ratings methodology. In doing so, organisational performance appeared to be an apparent solution, to be considered as the main basis on which to derive new ratings for a company. However organisational performance has its own conceptual disagreements between managers and researchers concerning the dimensions to be measured for overall organisational performance. Therefore, this study attempted two tasks: to establish a link between ratings and organisational performance, and to identify what should be measured for overall organisational performance. This resulted in the development of new corporate ratings methodology based upon the overall organisational performance measurement in case of publicly traded companies. A mixed methods research strategy combined with a qualitative analyses of 10 selected company cases and 24 interviews; and quantitative analyses of the performance of 128 publicly traded companies from the UK, the USA and the India stock exchanges in 4 manufacturing and 3 service industries was adopted in the development, testing and application of ‘new company ratings’ and ‘overall organisational performance measurement’ propositions. Secondary data was obtained from companies’ annual reports, sustainability reports, social responsibility reports, performance reports available from companies’ official websites; and company profiles generated by trade analyst companies such as Bloomberg and Morningstar. Primary data was collected from company managers, industry experts, trade analysts and investors through telephonic or face-to-face semi-structured interviews. Company reports and interview transcripts were analysed using qualitative content analysis. A metaphor was applied to understand and to derive the concept of overall organisational performance measurement in terms of stability, resilience and sustainability. A secondary data survey of 128 companies was conducted to test three hypotheses of organisational performance (OP) based ratings, stability – resilience – sustainability as main dimensions of OP, and the application of an overall OP score to derive new corporate ratings. Performance data for 54 dimensions for 128 companies was collected and analysed, applying reliability analysis, principal components analysis, multiple discriminant analysis and non-parametric independent sample tests of Mann-Whitney U and Kruksal-Wallis. All hypotheses were accepted proving the concept and model based on statistical and subjective significance. Findings suggest there is a strong link between corporate ratings and organisational performance (OP), and OP measurement could be utilised to provide improved and overarching new corporate ratings as compared to existing credit ratings. A significant difference was found to exist between new corporate ratings and existing credit ratings, with new corporate ratings having a better predictive accuracy of company performance over a three years duration. Sustainability was found to contribute more towards measurement of organisational performance as compared to the traditional dimension of stability, comprising financial and operational performance. Very high reliability and principal component scores for sustainability proved that organisational effectiveness can be measured as one of the contributing dimensions to overall organisational performance. Other findings suggest that there is a clear divide between researchers studying OP as a variable and developing a framework in which to measure it. Overall OP can be measured by applying the conceptual lenses of stability, sustainability and resilience, comprising various sub-dimensions. Major and novel contributions of this research are: a new approach in providing corporate ratings based upon overall organisational performance, and a new concept of measuring overall organisational performance in terms of stability, resilience and sustainability.

De senaste åren har svenska fotbollsföreningars corporate social responsibility blivit alltmer synligt och uppmärksammat. Svenska fotbollsföreningar har ett högt kommersiellt- och underhållningsvärde och de har därför knytit sig an stora sponsorkontrakt. Syftet med den här undersökningen är att öka förståelsen om hur svenska fotbollsföreningars corporate social responsibility upplevs påverka sponsorrelationen. Teorierna som används i undersökningen är The Pyramid of Corporate Social Responsibility, Intressentteorin och forskning gällande relationer. En kvalitativ forskningsmetod har använts och intervjuer har genomförts med fotbollsföreningar och sponsorer. Slutsatsen av undersökningen är att svenska fotbollsföreningars corporate social responsibility upplevs ha en positiv inverkan på sponsorrelationen. / Regarding the last years increasing corporate social responsibility of Swedish football clubs or at least the increasing visibility of it was the main interest of this study. Swedish football has a high commercial and entertainment value and has many big sponsors. The purpose of this study was to increase the understanding of the corporate social responsibility of Swedish football clubs and its impact on the relationship between sponsor and football club. The theories selected was The Pyramid of Corporate Social Responsibility, Stakeholder theory and research regarding business relationships and was used to analyze the result of the study. A qualitative method was used and interviews with football clubs and with sponsors of the clubs were made. The conclusion of the study is that the corporate social responsibility of football clubs is perceived to have an positive impact on the relationship between sponsor and football club.

The Master's thesis deals with a question of corporate social responsibility. The thesis is divided into two main parts. The theoretical and methodological part explains main terms related to CSR, introduces important organizations oriented on CSR and describes standards of corporate social responsibility that can be followed. The first part is also supplemented with interesting data gained in public opinion research on the theme of CSR and its public perception. In the practical part, there are analyzed CSR strategies of two companies: T-Mobile Czech Republic, a.s. and IBM Czech Republic, spol. s r.o. Individual activities are classified into three basic pillars of corporate social responsibility. Approaches of these two companies are compared and in the conclusion of the thesis there are recommended steps to make corporate social responsibility of the two companies more effective.