During recent years, company scandals and an intensified demand from the public that companies should take social responsibility have increased the importance for companies to work with corporate social responsibility (CSR). Medias extended coverage of firms’ behavior has further underlined this significance.  The purpose of this thesis is to investigate how companies in Umeå approach CSR. We have used three research questions in order to get an understanding of how companies in Umeå interpret CSR, implement CSR and communicate CSR  Our study has been conducted in the form of a comparative case study. We have done four interviews at four different companies, all conducting business in Umeå. We have performed face-to-face semi-structured interviews as our primary data collection method.  As a theoretical framework, we have used the stakeholder theory and the shareholder value theory, and also looked at theories of how companies can use CSR as a business strategy. Furthermore, CSR from a local perspective as well as how standards and regulations impact on CSR has been discussed from a theoretical viewpoint.  Our findings indicate that the companies we have studied can be considered good at implementing CSR measures. However, they do not interpret their work in this area as CSR; instead they use the term sustainability or they use no definition at all. There is a belief among the studied companies that it is important to take social responsibility, not just from a economic view point as a business strategy but also because it is seen as the right thing to do. The ways in which they implement CSR (or sustainability as the majority of them choose to call it) differs among the studied companies, reflecting the nature of their business. The communication of CSR work also differs: three out of four companies of our study are generally reluctant to promote their CSR work, even though their CSR commitments are great. One company though sees the promoting of their CSR work as a way to attract investors.  Our studied firms have generally acted in a social responsible way for a long time without really reflecting over it as being CSR. Conducting business in a small place like Umeå means you constantly interact with different stakeholders. In turn, this makes taking social responsibility a vital part of doing business in Umeå, which is one conclusion to be drawn from our thesis.

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This essay has aimed at exploring how different companies work with CSR. We want to highlight their opinions about the topic, what it means for the companies that work with it and how important it is to apply CSR in a business. The reason why we chose this subject is because of the possibilities that come with working with CSR. We think there are a lot to be done when it comes to corporate social responsibility and we want to be a part of this new type of marketing. The win-win-situation that occurs with CSR is unique and it makes the subject interesting. When there are plenty of winners due to a marketing method, it has to be something to take seriously.   To reach our goal with this study we have designed two questions; For what reason does companies work with CSR to strengthen the brand?   Which advantages and disadvantages does it mean for a brand to work with CSR?   By having done several interviews and study of existing theories, we have reached our goal. We have through this work come to the conclusion that CSR plays an important role in the efforts to strengthen brands. The knowledge among the consumer has increased over the years and they have started to be more demanding when it comes to how companies operate. At the same time, companies have begun to realize that they can use CSR to relate properties to the brand that appeals to the consumer. Our qualitative study has brought more interesting information to daylight and we are happy to present it during our essay.

The  study  is  about  the  implementation  of  environmental  conscious  approach  of corporatesocial responsibility in the Food wholesale and retail business. The environmental approach includes  eco  friendly  packaging,  organised  logistics  and  practices  of  energy  conservation. The case studied is Axfood through the investigation of their public reports, observation at stores  and  interview  with  the  store  managers  and  the  Head  of  Corporate  Social Responsibility. The methodology used in the research project is case study methodology during which data from  various  sources has  been  used  and  analysed  for  information  richness  and  going  deep down into the matter for investigation the patterns of environmental concern at Axfood. The empirical exposure gained through observations, repeated store investigation, interviews of customers and store managers and having five interview sessions with Asa Domeij (Head of the Environmental matters at Axfood) had formed the result in three learning points. One,the practice of having competition on cheap and quality products on the basis of re-injected revenue and expenses control through recycling and energy conservation is successful. Two, market pressure on companies to focus only on the products that pushes them to neglect the social  audits  followed  by  ambiguous  reports  is  not  a  sustainable  solution.  Lastly,  learning from  competitors,  attaining  point  of  parity  through  having  what  others  have  with  some uniqueness  that others  lack  is  in  terms  of  superior  environmental  consciousness  is  the solution  for  future  business  (recent  digital  loyalty  programme  of  Willys).

Syfte: Sambandet mellan CSR och företagets marknadsvärde har undersökts i ett flertal tidigare studier. Vår studie riktar istället fokus på hur företagets marknadsvärde förändras när externa och interna CSR-åtgärder separeras. Studiens syfte är att förklara hur företagets marknadsvärde förändras om gapet mellan externa och interna CSR-åtgärder ökar eller minskar.   Metod: Studien är en kvantitativ studie med utgångspunkt från den positivistiska filosofin med en hypotetisk-deduktiv ansats. Vi har utfört en studie med tvärsnittsdesign på 147 börsnoterade europeiska företag för åren 2008 till 2017. Sekundärdata från Thomson Reuters Datastream har använts för denna studie och den insamlade datan har sedan analyserats i statistikprogrammet SPSS.   Resultat & slutsats: Studiens resultat ger en svag indikation att marknadsvärdet ökar när skillnaderna mellan extern och intern CSR ökar. Resultat antyder att på grund av institutionella skillnader mellan europeiska länder kan intressenternas makt variera över företagen.   Examensarbetets bidrag: Studien bidrar till att fylla forskningsgapet som existerat för europeiska bolag om sambandet angående gapet mellan extern och intern CSR och dess påverkan på företagets marknadsvärde. Studien bidrar också med unik kombination av sex externa och sex interna CSR variabler för undersökning angående förhållandet mellan extern och intern CSR. Studiens praktiska bidrag är att förse information till företag om att ta hänsyn till intressenterna för att kunna bättre planera hur resurser fördelas mellan extern och intern CSR. Då intressenter i sin tur ger en positiv påverkan på företagets marknadsvärde.   Förslag till fortsatt forskning: Det kan finnas kulturella skillnader mellan länder och världsdelar, varför det vore intressant att genomföra studien i olika världsdelar. / Aim: The relationship between CSR and the company’s market value has been studied in several previous studies. Our study focuses instead on how the company’s market value changes when external and internal CSR are separated. The purpose of this study is to investigate how the company’s market value changes if the gap between external and internal CSR increases or decreases.   Method: The study is a quantitative study with the starting point of the positivistic philosophy with a hypothetical-deductive approach. This study uses a cross-sectional design of 147 listed European companies for the years 2008 to 2017. Secondary data from the Thomson Reuters Datastream has been used for this study and the collected data has then been analyzed in the SPSS statistics program.   Result & Conclusions: The result of the study shows a weak indication that the market value increases as the differences between external and internal CSR increase. The results suggest that because of institutional differences between European countries, the influence over the company may vary for different stakeholders.   Contribution of the thesis: The study contributes to filling the gap of research that exists for European companies on the relationship of the gap between external and internal CSR and its impact on the company’s market value. The study also contributes with a unique combination of six external and six internal CSR variables for studies on the relationship between external and internal CSR. The practical contribution of the study is information for companies to take stakeholders into consideration in order for the company to better plan how to divide resources between external and internal CSR, so this in turn gives a positive impact on the company’s market value.   Suggestions for future research: There may be cultural differences between countries and continents, so it would be interesting to conduct the study in different continents.

CSR has been a more popular subject in the last few decades. However, CSR is seldom connected with SMEs. Many scholars suggest that the reasons are: firstly the attention on CSR practice falls much more on MNCs since publics perceive MNCs have bigger impact on the society. Secondly, most SMEs do not have required resources to work with CSR and many SMEs regard CSR as a burden. However, there are more and more SMEs that start to work with CSR. Therefore the purpose of this thesis is to increase the understanding of why SMEs work with CSR and how do SMEs implement CSR strategies.   The theoretical framework contains strategy, CSR pyramid, decision making process, stakeholder theory, business opportunity model of CSR for SME, legitimacy, strategy implementation and business relations. The emiprical findings contain the case firms’ view on what stimulate them to work with CSR and how they implement its CSR strategies within and outside the firms.   In the analysis we have connected the theoretical framework with our empirical findings. We analyze who the decision makers are and most important stakeholders within the firm as well as what stakeholders are interested in to be able to answer our firs research quesiton. Furthermore, we describe the implemetion process of our case firms as well as to analyze what types of business relations they have wirh its supplier, which will help us to answer our second research question.   The conclusions of this thesis are that it is profitability that drives SMEs to work with CSR. Furthermore, SMEs carry out its CSR strategy differently and the differences depend on how much resources do firms have and the types of relationship with suppliers.

This diploma thesis focuses on the application of the concept of social responsibility in business practice of the companies ČSOB, a. s., Raiffeisenbank a. s. a Tesco SW, a.s. This application is based on mentioned theoretical foundations and qualitative research. The thesis also analyzes and evaluates the implementation of CSR strategy in chosen companies. The aim is to suggest activities to effective application of CSR philosophy for these companies.

At present, humanity faces one of its most pressing and daunting challenges: climate change. For this reason, sustainable development is a topic more urgent now than ever. CSR 2.0 is a model introduced to tackle the limitations of traditional CSR practices that have been shown to be ineffective over time. As Sweden is a country that leads with a great sustainability standpoint, the purpose of this thesis is, therefore, to gain insight and knowledge on the drivers and barriers from CSR to CSR 2.0 in companies operating in Sweden. This study observes an interpretive philosophy through a qualitative study that aims to understand the drivers' contrary barriers to the shift. With a mixed methods methodology and use of triangulation, the empirical data is collected in accordance with four companies from semi-structured interviews, annual and sustainability reports, as well as from website information. The empirical findings are analyzed thematically through coding, where eleven sub-themes and two themes emerged. This study discovers the practices that occur within companies through an inductive approach and proposes that the companies have evolved and currently pursue and perform certain CSR 2.0 practices. The findings justify that all companies experience drivers of their fundamentals, long-term vision, climate action, value chains, innovation, organizational culture, competitive advantage as well as internal and external pressure which adhere to CSR 2.0. Additionally, barriers of risk aversion, lack of resources as well as monitoring and evaluation were identified. This thesis has contributed to existing literature to fill the gap on what acts as drivers and barriers to how companies pursue CSR 2.0. The findings may be valuable for companies that feel the need to adapt their CSR approaches in response to our evolving world.

Titel: CSR-rapportering inom banksektorn - En jämförande innehållsanalys av hållbarhetsrapporteringen hos banker i Sverige och Danmark Nivå: C-uppsats i ämnet företagsekonomi Författare: Magdalena Clarenmark och Ylva Wallström Handledare: Arne Fagerström Datum: 2016 – januari Syfte: Studiens syfte är att jämföra frivillig CSR-rapportering hos svenska banker och reglerad CSR-rapportering hos danska banker, samt beskriva hur dessa skiljer sig åt med avseende på begreppet god rapporteringssed, som konstrueras i denna studie. Metod: Denna studie är kvantitativ med en deduktiv ansats, samt longitudinell och tvärkulturell. Data sammanställs via deskriptiv statistik och presenteras genom tabeller och diagram. Resultaten analyseras sedan i en första och en andra analys. Resultat & slutsats: Resultaten visar att tid och storlek påverkar hur mycket relevant CSR-information som bankerna lämnar ut. Det går dock inte att fastställa om land har någon väsentlig inverkan på CSR-rapporteringen, men det framgår att reglering har viss effekt. Trots detta tycks den mimetiska isomorfismen väga tyngre i denna studie än den tvingande isomorfismen. Det viktigaste resultatet är dock att samtliga svenska och danska banker är dåliga på att publicera information som är relevant för sin bransch. God rapporteringssed fyller alltså en viktig funktion genom att uppmärksamma att svenska och danska banker inte tar upp de aspekter som kan förväntas ingå i rapporteringen. Förslag till fortsatt forskning: Eftersom konceptet god rapporteringssed introduceras i denna studie behöver mätverktyget utvecklas ytterligare. Vidare behöver mätning av god rapporteringssed upprepas i studier med större urval för att kunna avgöra om begreppet speglar god sedvana för CSR-rapportering inom banker. Uppsatsens bidrag: Det viktigaste bidraget är att denna studie introducerar begreppet god rapporteringssed, vilket är ett kvantitativt mått som försöker att ringa in den goda sedvanan för hållbarhetsrapportering hos svenska och danska banker. Nyckelord: CSR, CSR-rapportering, god rapporteringssed, Danmark, Sverige

Inledning: Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) är numera ett mer förekommande inslag i varje företag. Tidigare forskning inom området har försökt fastställa en relation mellan CSR och lönsamhet, med varierande resultat. CSR-aktiviteter kan ses ur två olika perspektiv, där det första speglar det som en investering som ökar värdet för intressenter och i sin tur kan leda till ökad lönsamhet. Det andra synsättet förutsätter snarare att ett företag är lönsamt för att ge utrymme för CSR-aktiviteter. Genom dessa två perspektiv kan CSR-aktiviteter å ena sidan betraktas som en nödvändighet, å den andra som en lyx. Problemformulering: Vilka drivkrafter kan förklara på vilken nivå i Carrolls (1979; 1991) CSR-pyramid ett företag befinner sig? Syfte: Syftet är att ge en förklaring till om CSR-aktiviteter kan urskiljas som en nödvändighet eller en lyx, genom att studera nivån i CSR-pyramiden. Metod: Studien har utgått från en deduktiv ansats där befintliga teorier använts för att generera hypoteser, som sedan testats utifrån ett kvantitativt tillvägagångssätt med en longitudinell design. Ett kodningsschema togs fram och baserades på indikatorer för CSR-aktiviteter indelade i ekonomiskt, legalt, etiskt och filantropiskt ansvarsområde. Genom kodningsschemat utfördes innehållsanalyser av årsredovisningar från 26 företag på Stockholmsbörsens Large Cap, under en femårsperiod.  Resultat och slutsats: Resultaten som studien har erhållit visar att CSR-aktiviteter kan betraktas som en nödvändighet, i bemärkelsen att företag inom samma bransch engagerar sig i CSR-aktiviteter hänförbara till de etiska och legala ansvarsområdena. Vad gäller om CSR-aktiviteter kan betraktas som lyx, visar resultaten att en hög andel insiderägande i ett företag ger utlopp för ett opportunistiskt beteende, genom ett högt engagemang i filantropiska aktiviteter.