Titel: Miljömässigt ansvarstagande – En studie om hur fastighetsbolag använder det miljömässiga ansvarstagandet för att tillfredsställa sina olika intressenter. Nivå: Kandidatuppsats i ämnet Företagsekonomi, 15 hp. Författare: Sandra Nilsson och Marcus Johansson Handledare: Eva Berggren Datum: Vårterminen 2019 Nyckelord: Corporate Social Responsibility, Intressentteorin, Management Control Systems. Problemdiskussion: Aspekter att ta hänsyn till vid fastighetsförvaltning framkommer både under planering och uppbyggnad men uppkommer även vid förvaltning. Caroll (2015) understryker att det ansvarstagande som företag besitter omfattas av normer, standarder, värderingar och förväntningar som återspeglas i vad konsumenter, anställda och andra intressenter anser är berättigade. Dessa intressenter återspeglas i intressentteorin, vilket synliggör företagens centrala aktörer i sin omgivning. Ett företag förlorar möjligheten att maximera värde om en viktig intressent blir ignorerade eller behandlad illa. Problemformulering: Hur använder fastighetsbolag miljömässigt ansvarstagande inom CSR för att tillfredsställa sina olika intressenter? Metod: Med utgångspunkt i att problemet är av förståelsekaraktär har författarna använt sig av en kvalitativ undersökningsmetod med fem valda respondenter för att generera en förståelse för problemformuleringen. Författarna har även använt sig av sekundära data i form av litteratur och tidigare forskning inom ämnet. Denna data har sedan bearbetats och analyserats och författarna har utifrån detta presenterat slutsatser. Slutsats: Flertalet av de miljömässiga ansvarstagandena styrs utefter att tillfredsställa fastighetsbolagens olika intressenter. Det miljömässiga ansvarstagandet används för att kontrollera verksamheten, leverantörer, hyresgäster och övriga intressenter. Det genererar fördelar i form av att finansieringen förbättras, bättre markfördelning från kommuner och en attraktiv arbetsplats för studenter. Kunskapsbidrag: Intressenter har en nyckelroll i beslut om befintliga och nya miljömässiga ansvarstaganden. Att ett fastighetsbolag har valt att arbeta med det miljömässiga ansvarstagandet inom CSR tolkar vi som en betydande faktor för intressenterna.

Esta pesquisa teve como objetivo descrever a priorização de stakeholders em empresas brasileiras e a sua relação com a indústria (setor econômico). Para atingir o objetivo principal da pesquisa, foram estabelecidos dois objetivos específicos: descrever a priorização de stakeholders nas empresas pesquisadas; e investigar a relação entre a priorização de stakeholders e a variável indústria. Nesta pesquisa, a priorização é definida operacionalmente como o atendimento preferencial dos interesses de um stakeholder em relação a outro. A fundamentação teórica aborda a teoria dos stakeholders, a priorização de stakeholders, os modelos de saliência e dominância de stakeholders, a performance social corporativa e o disclosure social, embasando-se também na voluntary disclosure theory. A amostra pesquisada é composta por 90 empresas que divulgaram relatórios anuais e/ou de sustentabilidade adotando a estrutura da GRI, referente ao ano de 2010. Calculou-se medidas de atendimento dos interesses dos stakeholders a partir da análise de 73 indicadores de desempenho GRI, associados a cinco stakeholders: compradores, direitos humanos, funcionários, meio ambiente e sociedade. Utilizou-se de análises descritivas para hierarquização dos stakeholders e das técnicas de análise de agrupamentos, ANOVA e qui-quadrado para investigar a relação entre a priorização e a variável indústria. Os resultados encontrados mostram que a hierarquia de priorização na amostra estudada tem a seguinte ordem: funcionários, sociedade e compradores, direitos humanos e meio ambiente. Os resultados apontam diferenças na hierarquia de priorização de stakeholders por indústria, e indicam uma influência da indústria no nível de atendimento dos interesses dos stakeholders. Desta forma, este estudo busca contribuir apresentando evidências empíricas da priorização de stakeholders no contexto brasileiro. / This study aimed to describe the stakeholder prioritization in Brazilian companies and their relationship with industry. The two specific objectives are: to describe the stakeholder prioritization across the surveyed firms and investigate the relationship between the stakeholder prioritization and the industry variable. In this research, prioritization is operationally defined as the preferential treatment to the interests of one stakeholder over another. The literature review is based on the stakeholder theory, stakeholder prioritization, stakeholder salience and dominance, corporate social performance, and social disclosure, basing also on voluntary disclosure theory. The sample is made by 90 companies with sustainability reporting adopting the GRI framework, in the year 2010. Measures of the treatment to the stakeholder interests were calculated from the analysis of 73 GRI performance indicators associated with five stakeholders: customers, human rights, employees, environment and society. It was used descriptive analysis, cluster analysis, ANOVA and chi-square techniques to investigate the relationship between the prioritization and the industry. The results show that the hierarchy of prioritization in the sample has the following order: employees, customers and society, human rights and environment. The results show differences in the hierarchy of stakeholder prioritization by industry, and indicate an influence of the industry on the level of treatment to the stakeholder interests. Thus, this study wants to contribute with empirical evidence of stakeholder prioritization in the Brazilian context.

Sustainability has been an issue receiving growing attention in the past decade and the construction sector has not escaped notice. There has been a response at both the Government and industry level, to the agenda; with agreement that the industry must address sustainability by acting to minimise its impacts on both the environment and society. While much focus has been placed on how to minimise these impacts in the building sector, far less attention has been given to the infrastructure sector. Again while attention has been given to the construction process and acknowledging the potential for maximising impact reduction at the design stage, the focus given to the relationship between sustainability and consultant engineers has been limited. This research sets out to understand the influences affecting sustainability in a multidisciplinary engineering consultancy, with an emphasis on the environment and the design stage. Utilising a selection of research methods (i.e. case studies, archival analysis, interviews, causal loops and questionnaires) an understanding was developed illustrating the influence that clients, strategic and operational organisational issues, policy and engineers knowledge, have on implementing sustainability. Relating the research to the existing literature, it was possible to propose a number of interventions to promote the integration of sustainability within a consultancy.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has become an increasingly significant element in contemporary business. Globalisation, a growing concern for environmental degradation, and evident social inequality have installed CSR on the global agenda. Companies around the world are introducing CSR programs, and many of the Schools of Management or Business Schools have CSR courses in their core programmes, including their MBAs. Organisations such as EFMD (www.efmd.org), ABIS (www.abis.org) and PRME (www.prme.org) are prompting universities and business schools to implement CSR as well as sustainability courses and seminars. Conceptual research concerned with the influences on firms’ socially responsible actions has recently emphasized the importance of institutional factors. However, current institutional accounts of corporate social responsibility implicitly assume the presence of well-developed and relatively stable institutional characteristics found in developed countries. In order to address this gap, this thesis presents a conceptual model, which explores how institutional pressures configure a local company’s CSR practices in developing countries. This thesis presents empirical findings drawn from in depth open-ended interviewees to managers of local companies in Argentina, taking into account type of industry, size, and the presence of multinational companies (MNCs). In so doing, this study contributes to extending the application of institutional theory to developing countries context and to theoretical analysis of local companies CSR practices in such contexts. Within this analysis, this study places particular emphasis on the role of MNC and the State in the processes of adoption of CSR practices by local companies in a developing country. Finally, this thesis contributes with practical implications for mangers of local companies and managers of MNCs’ subsidiaries in developing countries.

Recognition that corporations are embedded within societies is playing an increasingly significant role in shaping strategic decision making in modern business organisations. Corporate community involvement (CCI) is becoming an increasingly salient aspect of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and encompasses a diverse range of activities from philanthropic giving and employee volunteerism to cause related marketing and sponsorship, and supports a range of community needs from education and welfare to cultural and artistic development. As such it provides an ideal focus for exploring the economic, strategic, cultural and institutional influences on CCI. This thesis presents the first systematic analysis of CCI behaviours in Turkey. Turkey, as a secular, developing, largely Moslem country with a growing economy, provides a comparative research context that is culturally, economically and institutionally distinct from other environments within which CCI has been studied. A conceptual model has been developed based on the application of the behavioural theory of the firm. The model engenders the studies which aim to explain the situation of CCI in an institutional, cultural, and national context and through the CCI model, it is expected that the multicultural and complex characteristics of the CCI phenomenon can be understood. The findings suggest that shareholder/investors and community groups positively affect the companies in taking the decision to engage in CCI. The documented relationship between CCI, ownership type, and other firm characteristics also had important implications. This study finds that larger firms are more likely and smaller firms less likely to become involved in CCI activities. Local Turkish companies are keener to contribute large amounts in corporate giving than foreign ones. There is a strong orientation of CCI in Turkey to projects concerned with education, healthcare and the arts. The three common exclusions are politics, religion and animal rights. The majority of CCI expenditures in Turkey took the form of sponsorships. Engaging in CCI under a CSR department is not thepreferred choice in Turkey usually the companies wants to engage in their CCI activities under other business functions. The companies generally separate their philanthropic and sponsorhip activities from each other. Key types of CCI such as employee volunteerism, cash resources or gifts-in-kind, are undertaken under the auspices of these philantrophy and sponsorship and considered to be resources allocated to engage in these types of CCI. This thesis fills the gaps in the existing literature with respect to the lack of conceptual and empirical studies about the necessity of investigating the topic of CCI from a holistic perspective; the necessity of application of other theory(ies) which are able to describe the whole CCI situation instead of describing it piecemeal, and the necessity of discovering different institutional contexts because existing research is geographically narrowly drawn and usually concentrated in the U.S and Western Europe. The thesis is structured to fill these gaps and the contributions are made based on the lacks of the existing studies on CCI.

This thesis investigates corporate social responsibility reporting in Mexico. It is built across three studies. First, we analysed the content and semantic properties of annual reports, sustainability reports and corporate websites of 73 Mexican and foreign companies operating in Mexico to describe the extent to which these companies disclose their corporate social responsibility. Second, with the data gathered in the first study, we built thirteen disclosure scores to explore whether corporate governance and corporate social responsibility reporting in annual reports can be seen as complementary mechanisms used by companies to enhance relations with stakeholders. Third, we conducted an in-depth case study of a Mexican company acquired by a multinational company; we analysed the sustainability reports and news items during the time prior to and after the purchase to investigate the changes in corporate social responsibility reporting as a result of the acquisition. Our study contributes to the scarce literature exploring corporate social responsibility reporting in Mexico and adds to the methodological research in the field by conducting a survey of corporate social responsibility reporting across industries and reporting media and by utilising a content analysis approach of considerable measurement detail. We provide empirical evidence to previous literature suggesting that foreign ownership may have a positive impact on themes of disclosure such as the environment, but have a negative impact on community. We also contribute to corporate social responsibility reporting research in the context of mergers and acquisitions, by providing empirical evidence which suggests that company responses in the form of corporate social responsibility disclosure to institutional pressures consider both stakeholders salience and business culture.

The competitive situation for businesses has experienced drastical changes as an effectof globalization and changes in consumer demands. Product related competitive advantages arerisking to quickly become presumptions for competition. The demand for increased innovationpace, along with the intense price competition, has led to buisnesses trying to find new ways todifferentiate themselves and Corporate Social Responsibility has became one way of doing so.The bad working conditions associated with the textile industry have rised a debate about thebusinesses’ Corporate Social Responsibility. The future is heading towards more and morecompanies choosing to take their social responsibility, many of those experiencing this to be anadvandage in the relation with the consumers. Although, there are no proofs supporting thattheory.To be able to answer if the Corporate Social Responsibility adopted by companies actually cancontribute with benefits, the following problem formulation was created: Is it possible to build a strong brandimage through CSR? Is the interest for ethics important enough among swedish fashion consumers to have animpact on their buying desicion?The purpose of this study is to illustrate how companies in the fashion industry can apply CSR, toenhance their brandimage, and create competitive advantages. The study also aims to examine, inwhat way, the consumers’ interest in ethics and social issues affect their buying decisions.The study showed that most consumers like to think of themselves as “good people” andtherefore find social responsibility and fair working conditions to be of great importance whichmakes it possible for comapanies to build a strong brandimage with CSR. Although, the likingtowards social responsibility showed to be in no way a warranty for companies that consumerswill choose their products over those of the competitors’. A strong brandimage, thus, isn’t enoughto affect the consumers buying decision though other attributes is of greater importance for thecustomers. However, there is a small segment that find fair working conditions to be of greatimportance. The conclusion is that CSR, as a competitive weapon and differentiator, is suitablefor a small segment of the market rather than the market as a whole. / Program: Textilekonomutbildningen

The relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and consumer attitudes has been investigated in previous research; however, empirically there is no studies deliberate the role of consumer ethics in order to achieve the CSR, that is, to achieve greater CSR, there is a need to be accompanied with consumer ethics. Therefore, the emergence of consumer ethical behaviour has brought a new perspective to determining the influences of CSR on consumer attitudes. Based on The Theory of Planned Behaviour and Vitell-Hunt theory, this study aims to examine the link between CSR and consumer ethical behaviour, and its influences on consumer attitudes. In order to address the aim, this study explores the relationship between CSR from the philanthropic perspective, and consumers' ethical behaviour. It also determines the extent to which CSR affects brand trust and consumer affective behavioural attitudes. Finally, it examines the role of consumers' ethical behaviour in influencing consumers' attitudes alongside CSR. To address these objectives, this study adopted positivism research philosophy, using a quantitative survey method. The data were collected from consumers who make purchases from the retail sector in the UK. A self-administered questionnaire was developed based on the previous literature. Then, 500 questionnaires were distributed, of which 350 were completed and used for the final analysis. Multivariate analysis was employed, with the questionnaires analysed using a covariance-based structural equation modelling (SEM) approach. The findings reveal that as hypothesized, CSR 'philanthropy' is significantly associated with consumer ethical behaviour; however, this study reveals a negative relationship between them. This study also hypothesized that philanthropic retailers have an influence on (a) consumer affective attitudes and (b) consumer behavioural attitudes. This study does not support the hypothesized relationship between philanthropy and (a) consumer affective attitudes or (b) consumer behavioural attitudes. However, the study identifies a positive relationship between philanthropy and brand trust. Consumers' ethical behaviour is not statistically significantly related to brand trust or consumer affective attitudes. However, the relationship between consumer ethical behaviour and consumer behavioural attitudes is found to be statistically significant. Moreover, the study demonstrates a positive relationship between brand trust and consumer behavioural attitudes, and that consumer affective attitudes mediate this relationship. This study offers a number of theoretical contributions to the literature on CSR and consumer ethics. First, the important contribution lies in the attempt to explore the relationship between CSR and consumers' ethical behaviour. This study unexpectedly, discovers the negative relationship between CSR and consumers' ethical behaviour. The possible explanation is that when consumers perceive the company to behave philanthropically, they are less likely to evaluate themselves as ethical because they may attribute their ethical behaviour to the company's perceived philanthropic behaviours. This study further highlights the positive relationship between consumers' ethical behaviour and their behavioural attitude. The second contribution lies in the relationship between CSR and consumers' responses. In line with previous studies (e.g. Willmott 2003; Hustvedt 2014; Singh et al. 2012), this study concurs that CSR positively affects consumers' brand trust. However, the relationship between CSR and consumers' attitudes is not statistically significant. Instead, this study highlights the important role of brand trust; that is, based on this finding, brand trust is the key driver of both consumers' affective and behaviour attitudes. Third, this study discovers the partially mediating role of consumers' affective attitude on the link between brand trust and behavioural attitude; which seems to be an essential sub-process regulating the effect of brand trust on consumer behavioural attitudes. This study also has practical implications. Firstly, retailers are recommended to effectively communicate their philanthropic activities to consumers in order to enhance their brand trust. It is particularly important that they also aim at influencing consumers' trust in their brand because it is the brand trust that would positively affect their purchasing decision. The final recommendation is that management should focus their CSR communication on the ethical consumer segment because ethical consumers show strong intention to purchase from a socially responsible company.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) advertising is a type of corporate image advertising which promotes the CSR-based identity of a company in order to build and/or improve a socially responsible image. A CSR-based image and a good reputation for CSR at large has been regarded as a reservoir of goodwill which can function as a buffer against negative publicity. With this in mind, this thesis examines the effectiveness of CSR advertising for the purpose of insulating a firm from the negative impacts of crisis news by creating a positive image as a socially responsible company. This study also investigates the influences of favourable attitudes toward the CSR ad and how the level of attribution of crisis responsibility to the company modifies the effectiveness of CSR advertising as a buffer. As part of this process, the news frames which describe the crisis from either an accident perspective or a preventable-incident perspective and the ad-appeals (i.e., information-based and affect-based ad-appeals) were manipulated to test how they influence the effectiveness of CSR advertising when acting as a buffer. Adopting a quantitative methodology, this study collects data through web-based experiments with online panellists utilising fictitious video commercials and crisis news scenarios concerning a fictitious company. The results indicated that people who were exposed to the CSR ad prior to reading the crisis news tended to be less influenced by the news than those who were not exposed to the ad in terms of their perceptions of company image and both their attitudes and behavioural intentions toward the company. CSR advertising was equally effective at reducing the damage to company image and attitudes toward the company in both different news frame conditions and using both different ad-message type conditions. The results imply that if people perceive CSR-based images of a company through CSR advertising successfully, they tend to maintain these perceptions of the company even after they process any negative information about the company, and this is still true even if their evaluations of the responsibility for a crisis were not influenced by CSR advertising. As part of the research process, this study found that positive attitudes towards the CSR ad significantly and directly influenced both the company image and attitudes toward the company. However, when people processed the crisis news after viewing the CSR ad the direct impact of attitudes toward the ad on attitudes toward the company disappeared. This indicates that the 'affect-transfer' from attitudes toward the ad to attitudes toward the company occurred under advertisement-only conditions. When negative publicity was processed, the crisis information may act as a latent inhibitor of the affect-transfer effect and the company image variable became a full mediator.

Motivés par des articles et des discussions récentes sur les valeurs monétaires par rapport aux valeurs sociales, j'ai un grand intérêt à étudier l'impact des valeurs sociales ou de la responsabilité sociale des entreprises (“CSR”) sur les valeurs des entreprises. Le chapitre un et le chapitre deux étudient tous deux l'activisme des actionnaires sur les questions de CSR, tout en ayant des objectifs différents. Le premier chapitre étudie les propositions d'actionnaires déposées par des fonds socialement responsables (“SRIs”) en utilisant un échantillon collecté à la main. Le premier chapitre fournit des statistiques descriptives sur ces propositions et examine les caractéristiques de l'entreprise cible. Deuxièmement, à l'aide de la méthodologie de l'étude des événements, il examine la réaction du marché autour du dépôt de la proposition et constate une réaction positive du marché à ces propositions. Troisièmement, il examine l’horizon à plus long terme et étudie l’impact à long terme de ces propositions sur la valeur marchande, la performance opérationnelle et la performance sociale des entreprises. Le deuxième chapitre étudie un échantillon plus large de propositions d'actionnaires déposées par différentes parties, notamment des investisseurs institutionnels (par exemple, fonds de pension, fonds SRI), des syndicats, des fondations, des groupes religieux et des particuliers. Le chapitre deux se concentre plus sur l'identification de l'impact des différents déclarants sur le résultat de la proposition, et les résultats montrent que les investisseurs institutionnels tels que les fonds SRI et les fonds de pension sont des déclarants plus performants. Si une proposition est déposée par des fonds SRI ou des fonds de pension, elle a beaucoup plus de chances de réussir et recevoir des votes plus favorables. La réaction du marché aux activités de dépôt de propositions est également positive pour ces déposants et a également une incidence à long terme sur les entreprises cibles. Le chapitre trois étudie la performance des fonds SRI. En choisissant une période de temps particulière (c’est-à-dire la crise financière), elle tente de séparer la performance des investissements des fonds des rendements générés par des groupes spécifiques d’entreprises (c’est-à-dire les entreprises ayant de bonnes notes CSR). Les résultats montrent que ces SRIs génèrent des rendements inférieurs à ceux des fonds conventionnels pendant la crise, alors que ces entreprises obtiennent en moyenne des rendements plus élevés pendant la crise, comme le suggèrent d'autres études (Lins et al. 2017). Cependant, ce résultat ne persiste pas après la crise financière dans l'échantillon correspondant. La volatilité des flux des SRIs est inférieure à celle des fonds conventionnels. L'analyse de la sensibilité des flux dans une régression linéaire par morceaux montre que les SRIs attirent plus de flux que les fonds conventionnels après avoir contrôlé divers autres facteurs. Une analyse plus poussée montre que les SRIs ont tendance à avoir un horizon d'investissement plus long et à vendre moins pendant la crise. Il aborde également les raisons potentielles et les motivations des investisseurs en examinant les flux de fonds SRI, les sensibilités aux performances des flux, horizons des investisseurs et les activités de vente pendant la crise. / Motivated by papers and recent talks on monetary values versus social values, I have great interest in studying how social values or corporate social responsibility (“CSR”) could impact firm values. Recent studies have shown that there are mainly three potential channels, through which CSR affects firm value. Firstly, employees help create firm value. Employee welfare is part of CSR (measured by MSCI ESG KLD Statistics, known as KLD scores), and employee satisfaction improves firm value shown by positive long-term abnormal stock market returns. (eg. Edmans 2011) Secondly, customers strongly link to firm value. Product quality and safety are part of CSR, and product characteristics are the main reasons directly linked to customer purchasing decisions, especially for firms in manufacturing and retail industries. Moreover, part of the customers may be socially conscious and are sensitive to firms’ actions towards environmental, community or human rights issues. They may form updated opinion of the firm based on their CSR activities and thus influence their purchasing decisions. Papers find that firms with more customer awareness benefit more from CSR. (eg. Servaes and Tamayo 2013) Thirdly, investors are associated with firm value. Investors, especially socially-conscious investors help discipline the firms’ CSR activities. Shareholder proposal is one good venue where they raise their voice and engage in the firms. Investors could use exit strategy to sell their shares, and changes in investment flows could affect firms’ value. (eg. Bialkowski & Starks 2016) The third channel, investors’ engagements in CSR issues in the firm and their association with firm value implications, as well as the related SRI investment performance are the main focus of this dissertation.