Approximately $25.2 trillion in total assets under management in the United States is involved in some strategy of socially responsible and sustainable investing. Grounded in the stakeholder theory, the purpose of this correlational study was to examine the relationships between financial performance, firm size, leverage, and corporate social responsibility. A random sample included 119 large companies located in the United States from the population of companies listed in the Russell 100 index. The data were collected via Bloomberg Terminal. Multiple linear regression analysis was used to predict Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) activity scores. The 3 predictor variables accounted for approximately 7% of the variance in ESG activity scores and the result was statistically significant, F(3,115) = 2.83, p < .04, R2 = .07. Although the p value was significant, the R2 was low representing a poor model fit. In the final analysis, total revenue was added to the model and was a significant predictor and negatively correlated with ESG activity scores; However, return on equity and leverage were not significant predictors of ESG activity scores suggesting the potential need to transfer some corporate social initiatives from business leaders to government policy makers. Future researchers should consider incorporating additional variables to make the model more useful. The implications for positive social change include the potential to identify fiscal incentives for corporate social programs by policy makers which benefit stakeholders such as employees, suppliers, customers, communities, and the environment.

Master thesis is devoted to the development of a model of socially responsible lending with LLC "Home Credit Bank". Within this goal, the paper examines the essence and principles of responsible lending; analysis of current concepts and problems in Russian and foreign practice. / Магистерская диссертация посвящена вопросам разработки модели социально- ответственного кредитования в ООО «Home Credit Bank». В рамках поставленной цели в работе поставлены задачи изучения сущности и принципов ответственного кредитования; анализа современных концепций и проблем в российской и зарубежной практике.

There is a growing awareness of, and commitment to, Responsible Investment (RI) in the institutional investment markets internationally. RI is defined as the consideration of environmental, social and/or governance (ESG) issues in long-term oriented investment decision-making. As the role of ESG in determining investment risk and opportunity becomes more evident, and as ESG data becomes more available, RI is increasingly seen as an area of potential investment innovation. This thesis applies institutional, evolutionary and relational economic geography theories to examine this trend, exploring the mainstreaming of RI through novel empirical and conceptual research. This thesis examines the investment learning processes and information channels available in Western liberal market economies of the UK, US and Australia. It adopts economic geography knowledge and innovation frames towards answering the question: 'Now that ESG information is more widely available in the investment markets, why has this not catalysed a greater shift towards RI integration in mainstream investment decisions?'. Learning, language and leadership factors within the institutional investment industry are all argued to help answer this question. This research uses a mixed method approach, with analysis based on a survey of 154 investment professions, 97 semi-structured interviews and a case of RI innovation. This thesis develops a conceptual framework of the communication channels and information sources used in investors' innovation-decision-process, drawing attention to the importance of both social and asocial learning processes in generating and sharing knowledge about climate issues within investment markets. Following this, the thesis examines the role of 'local buzz' and 'global pipelines' in facilitating access to, and uptake of, ESG information. Levels of buzz and pipelines are found to vary in different financial centres, and are facilitated by formal and informal networking linked to RI groups. Importantly, then, this thesis finds that both spatial and relational proximity influence investors' access to ESG information and RI knowledge. The second half of this thesis examines whether and how RI information, knowledge and practice can be integrated into existing individual and organisational decision-making frameworks. It highlights the need to better translate RI information into investment-relevant language, and provides an example of how environmentally-driven stranded assets can be reframed as a version of sunk costs, contributing novel spatial-temporal theorisations of this concept. Through an illustration of RI decision-making by the investment consultant Mercer and the University of Sydney endowment fund, this thesis highlights that the capacity to integrate RI through the investment chain does exist. However, willingness to do so is found to be hindered by institutional and organisational path dependent norms, reduced only in some firms by seeing RI as an innovative area of competitive advantage from growing client demand. This thesis therefore finds that RI is being adopted in increasingly more mainstream investment firms, but this is not always fully integrated throughout the firm, and that uptake is geographically varied based on exposure to networks of information and knowledge sharing, and institutional, organisational and individual norms. Ultimately, this thesis therefore contributes towards understandings of the processes underpinning the mainstreaming of RI, but also contributes to broader economic geographies of investment, knowledge sharing and innovation.

<p>Niska svest zainteresovanih strana o aktivnostima korporativno odgovornog poslovanja preduzeća ukazuje na potrebu da preduzeća efikasnije komuniciraju korporativnu odgovornost sa zainteresovanim stranama. Disertacija predstavlja novinu u istraživanjima u na&scaron;oj zemlji u okviru globalnog menadženta i menadženta ljudskih resursa, jer je istražen značaj i uticaj interne i eksterne komunikacije za prihvatanje, implementaciju, sprovođenje i razvijanje koncepta korporativne odgovornosti preduzeća.<br />Dru&scaron;tveno odgovorna interna i eksterna komunikacija preduzeća su sagledane kroz komunikaciju o korporativnoj odgovornosti prema zaposlenima, prema tržistu, prema životnoj sredini i prema &scaron;iroj dru&scaron;tvenoj zajednici.<br />Rezultati istraživanja su potvrdili istraživačke hipoteze, na osnovu čega je dat predlog mera za unapređenje korporativne odgovornosti preduzeća u internom i eksternom komuniciranju, kao i predlog budućih istraživanja.</p> / <p>Low awareness of the stakeholders concerning activities of the corporately responsible management of the company highlights a need for companies to provide more efficient corporately responsible communication with the stakeholders.<br />This Dissertation represents a novelty in the research in our country within the global management and human resources management, because of the importance and influence of internal and external communication for the acceptance, implementation, realization and development of the concept of corporate responsibility of the company.<br />Socially responsible internal and external communications of the company are evaluated through the communication of corporate responsibility towards employees, market, environment and wider community.<br />Outcome of this research confirmed the research hypotheses and based on those results, it was proposed to take measures for the improvement of the corporate responsibility of the company in internal and external communication as well as to make the future researches.</p>

A lot of people like gambling. Even though it brings excitement, it has its dark sides as well. Problem gambling is a disease that destroys lives every day. As gambling are entering the digital domain, phenomenon such as E-sport has made it easier than ever to gamble. Therefore it is important to minimize the risk of gambling addiction among the users. At present time, as an attempt to make this possible, legislators have started to implement different rules on how companies need to deal with responsible gambling. A trend, that has become a problem, is that gamblers tend to not read warning messages that they get when they have been playing for a long period of time. This thesis is about producing recommendations for how to design these modal windows so that users actually take the time to read the information they receive. The methods used in this thesis are connected to the 6 phases of the design thinking process produced by Nielsen Norman Group and they were literature studies, interviews, prototyping and user testing. It was found that people with a previous gambling addiction wanted to see information about how much money they had spent in total on their account. That could also show more clearly how serious one's playing habits are. One cannot stop everyone from developing a gambling addiction, but one can give everyone a chance to become healthy.

Responsible Investments is currently paving new paths in the financial industry. UnitedNation´s Principles for Responsible Investment (UN PRI) has in four years attracted over 700signatories in 36 countries. The principles are voluntary and kept in an open non-governingstructure. The lack of formal definitions and the actual value or effects of the UN PRIadoption is difficult to assess. Many researchers today are involved in attempts to measure thefinancial performance of responsible investments. This study takes a different stand point andinvestigates the motivation for joining UN PRI, how the implementation has been carried outand what the effects are, by the use of a case study. The six largest investors in terms of assetunder management (AUM) among the Swedish UN PRI signatories were interviewed, and aqualitative based semi structured interview was used. A structural analysis was carried out onthe results. Institutional Theory was used to explain the motivation for joining UN PRI andserved as the theoretical framework. Interpretation of UN PRI´s implementation differed insome instances to a large degree between the respondents. Transparency was uncovered as amajor success factor to the investors in support of decision making. All interviewedsignatories had developed their own way of working with UN PRI in terms of organization,priorities and the attempts to measure its effects. There is still a great need for moreknowledge around how these principles shall be implemented successfully and become part ofmainstream investments.The target audience for this paper is academics or business professionals with an interest inwhy and how UN´s principles for responsible investments are adopted by the financialindustry.

The responsibility of industry towards society and the environment is a much discussed topic, both in academia and in business. Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) has recently emerged as a new concept with the potential to advance this discourse in light of two major challenges industry is facing today. The first relates to the accelerating race to innovate in order to stay competitive in a rapidly changing world. The second concerns the need to maintain public trust in industry through innovations that generate social value in addition to economic returns. This Special Issue provides empirical and conceptual contributions that explore corporate motivations to adopt RRI, the state of implementation of concrete RRI practices, the role of stakeholders in responsible innovation processes, as well as drivers and barriers to the further diffusion of RRI in industry. Overall, these contributions highlight the relevance of RRI for firms of different sizes and sectors. They also provide insights and suggestions for managers, policymakers and researchers wishing to engage with responsibility in innovation. This editorial summarizes the most pertinent conclusions across the individual articles published in this Special Issue and concludes by outlining some fruitful avenues for future research in this space.

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate consumers’ willingness to act socially responsible in their online fashion purchasing behaviour. Three frameworks; Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB), Socially Responsible Consumer Behaviour (SRCB) and Consumer Social Responsibility (CNSR), constitute a foundation and have been combined in a conceptual framework. The research approach used is a qualitative research approach, and the empirical data was gathered in two semi-structured focus-groups with five and six participants. The participants were recruited by a convivence sampling method, with purposive sampling characteristics. The findings indicate that factors that influenced consumers’ willingness to act socially responsible was price, convenience, and time. Moreover, the findings show that SRCB is seen as a process, and that consumers’ stage in the process influence their willingness to act socially responsible. Lastly, it is shown that the TPB and SRCB must be considered before consumers can act socially responsible. This since consumers who have positive attitudes towards responsible actions, are susceptible to information of social and environmental issues related to their behaviour. These consumers can create enough awareness to take social- and environmental responsibility for their actions. Responsible consumers also aim to influence other consumers to take a greater responsibility. The findings of this study have contributed to further understanding within the research area of responsible consumers. Since the conceptual framework consider consumer behaviour in combination with their areas of awareness and responsibilities, this study contributes to deeper understanding of why consumers act socially responsible or not.

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The rapid advancement of AI technology emphasizes the importance of developing practical and ethical frameworks to guide its evolution and deployment in a responsible manner. In light of more complex AI and its capacity to influence society, AI researchers and other prominent individuals are now indicating that AI evolution has to be regulated to a greater extent. This study examines the practical implementation of Responsible AI guidelines in an organization by investigating the challenges encountered and proposing solutions to overcome them. Previous research has primarily focused on conceptualizing Responsible AI guidelines, resulting in a tremendous number of abstract and high-level recommendations. However, there is an emerging demand to shift the focus toward studying the practical implementation of these. This study addresses the research question: ‘How can an organization overcome challenges that may arise when implementing Responsible AI guidelines in practice?’. The study utilizes the guidelines produced by the European Commission’s High-Level Expert Group on AI as a reference point, considering their influence on shaping future AI policy and regulation in the EU. The study is conducted in collaboration with the telecommunications company Ericsson, which henceforth will be referred to as 'the case organization’, which possesses a large global workforce and headquarters in Sweden. Specific focus is delineated to the department that works on developing AI internally for other units with the purpose of simplifying operations and processes, which henceforth in this study will be referred to as 'the AI unit'. Through an inductive interpretive approach, data from 16 semi-structured interviews and organization-specific documents were analyzed through a thematic analysis. The findings reveal challenges related to (1) understanding and defining Responsible AI, (2) technical conditions and complexity, (3) organizational structures and barriers, as well as (4) inconsistent and overlooked ethics. Proposed solutions include (1) education and awareness, (2) integration and implementation, (3) governance and accountability, and (4) alignment and values. The findings contribute to a deeper understanding of Responsible AI implementation and offer practical recommendations for organizations navigating the rapidly evolving landscape of AI technology.