Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a subject that has gained more attention over the last two decades, and it is seen today as an integral part of the core strategy of many companies. The subject often involves a balancing act between many stakeholder interests, where employees often are mentioned as a main stakeholder group. The primary purpose of this degree project is to get a deeper understanding of managers’ perceptions of CSR’s impact on intrinsic and extrinsic employee motivation. Furthermore, this study fills the purpose of investigating perceptions about the effect of different CSR activities on intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. The study was conducted with the Swedish branch of Sodexo. Sodexo is globally considered a world leader in the service industry with over 419 000 employees in 80 countries, known for their well-developed and effective CSRwork. Current literature regarding CSR on the micro level (individual level and employee level) is still in an early stage which helped us to recognize a research gap. Similar studies to ours have not been concerned with getting a deeper understanding of the manager’s perceptions of CSR’s impact on employee motivation. This study was conducted using a mixed-method, which means that it consists of a qualitative part and a quantitative part where we discover how CSR activities towards employees, suppliers, the community, shareholders and customers affects employees’ extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. In the qualitative study, we conducted eight semi-structured interviews with managers from different departments and different hierarchical levels of Sodexo. These interviews helped us to gain a better understanding of how managers perceive the impact of CSR on employee motivation, and how they value the effect of different CSR activities on employee motivation. We used a thematic network analysis in order to interpret the results, which generated five themes: communication, strategic planning, diversity, working environment, and stakeholders. Our results demonstrated that managers perceived CSR activities towards the employees, the local community, and customers as intrinsic motivators. Also, Sodexo’s managers considered CSR activities towards employees and the local community as extrinsic motivators. However, interviewees disregarded CSR activities towards shareholders as a motivator towards the employees. Lastly, we received mixed-results regarding their perceptions of how CSR activities towards suppliers affected their employees’ motivation. For the quantitative part of our study, we surveyed employees at Sodexo in order to understand what motivates them. We used a multiple regression analysis which showed that CSR activities towards employees, shareholders, and customers positively impacts the intrinsic motivation of employees. Also, we discovered that CSR activities towards employees positively impacts the extrinsic motivation amongst employees. We argue that our findings indicate that CSR is a useful tool for increasing employee motivation, and thereby can lead to long-term competitive advantage. When comparing the results of our quantitative and qualitative studies through triangulation, one can see that there is perceptional differences and similarities between managers and employees. Our findings suggest that managers have the same perceptions as their employees regarding the effect of CSR activities conducted towards customers and employees on employee motivation. Also, our findings reveal a perceptual mismatch between managers and employees regarding the effects of employee motivation in regards to CSR activities conducted towards the community and shareholders

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Thesis: Stakeholder's value Goal of this thesis is to evaluate stakeholder's theory, as one of the ways of corporate governance. Shareholder model and stakeholder model dominate in corporate governance currently. At its core are two models considered competing. The method of corporate governance is largely influenced by the historical development of the legal and economic relationships in a particular nation. Therefore, before solving the very essence of stakeholder's theory, brief historical excursion into both model sis necessary. Work is divided into six chapters, first chapter is preceded by a short introduction and after sixth chapter follows the conclusion. The first chapter outlines the corporate governance as a field that is overarching stakeholder's theory. The second chapter presents the shareholder theory including its history. At the same time I try to focus on those aspects of the shareholder theory, which are in direct contrast to the stakeholder's theory. In the third chapter I describe the stakeholder's theory, including the historical context of the development of this model. In the fourth chapter I focus on a problem that accompanies stakeholder's theory: Is the purpose of the corporation to create value for its shareholders or for its stakeholders? First, though, I focus on what...

This report discusses the subject of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and CSR communication at Stadium. The study’s purpose is to study the role of sustainability in corporate social responsibility. This is executed through studying how Stadium chooses to communicate their sustainability practices externally. Furthermore, the report studies if and how Stadium’s CSR message reaches student consumers, and how it affects their opinions and consumer behavior. The gathered material is analyzed through the concept of CSR, reputation management and stakeholder theory. Our result shows that Stadium utilizes CSR as a business strategy, wants to contribute to a better society as well as gaining a more positive reputation. Stadium communicate the same sustainability information through the same communication channels to all stakeholders.We found that the student consumers are not reached by Stadium’s sustainability communication, and this is a contributing factor to why their opinions and consumer behavior at Stadium is unaffected. However, differences of opinion about whether sustainability practices affect the students’ view of Stadium arose - some would be affected by more sustainability information and for some it is rather a matter of price when making a purchase. The students believe that they would be better reached by Stadium’s sustainability message if it was communicated in stores. The report shows that sustainability is important for student consumers and also that inadequate communication decreases their opportunity to shop sustainably. It is less likely that a company’s reputation is affected in a positive way if sustainability is not adequately communicated / Uppsatsen behandlar företags sociala ansvar (CSR) och CSR-kommunikation på Stadium. Studiens syfte är att undersöka vilken roll hållbarhet har inom CSR. Detta görs genom att undersöka hur Stadium väljer att kommunicera sitt CSR-arbete externt, med fokus på hållbarhetsaspekten. Vidare undersöker studien huruvida Stadiums budskap når konsumentgruppen studenter och hur det i så fall påverkar konsumenternas åsikter och köpbeteende. Syftet uppnås genom att besvara tre frågeställningar med hjälp av intervjuer med representanter från Stadium samt student-fokusgupper. Det insamlade materialet från intervjuer och fokusgrupper analyseras utifrån CSR-konceptet, reputation management och stakeholder theory. Resultatet av undersökningen påvisar att Stadium vill bidra till ett bättre samhälle samt använder CSR som företagsstrategi, och vill att CSR-arbetet skall påverka sitt anseende positivt. Stadium kommunicerar samma hållbarhetinformation genom samma kommunikationskanaler till alla Stadiums intressenter (ex. genom hemsidan).Vidare framkom att studentkonsumenterna inte nås av Stadiums hållbarhetskommunikation, och att detta är en bidragande faktor till varför deras åsikter och köpbeteende på Stadium inte påverkas. Dock framkommer delade meningar huruvida studenternas syn på Stadium och beteende påverkas av hållbarhetsarbete - vissa skulle påverkas genom att få mer information och för vissa är det en prisfråga huruvida man handlar hållbart eller ej. Studenterna anser att de skulle nås bättre om hållbarhetsarbetet kommunicerades ut i butiksmiljön. Avslutningsvis visar studien på att hållbarhet är viktigt för studentkonsumenterna men att bristande kommunikation minskar deras möjlighet att handla hållbart. Det är mindre troligt att ett företags anseende påverkas positivt om hållbarhet inte kommuniceras tillräckligt.

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Value co-creation enhances employers' branding through the engagement of organisations' corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities and employees' behaviours, such as performance, loyalty and satisfaction. Although a growing body of research has explored the notion of value co-creation, the current understanding of the interrelationship between value co-creation and corporate social responsibility is underdeveloped. There is fierce academic debate surrounding the concept of value co-creation, calling for further theoretical and empirical work on this field. Furthermore, the concept of employer branding is still a nascent area in management and marketing scholarships and requires further conceptual nourishment. Although significant studies have covered the role of organisations and consumers in value co-creation resulting in employer branding, there has been little research to address the role of employees in value co-creation, dictating further assessment of their role in the process of value co-creation and participation in employer branding in a CSR context. Therefore, this thesis seeks to identify and analyse how, and to what extent, efforts to become socially responsible can co-create value for internal stakeholders and contribute to employer branding. As such, part of the theoretical foundation for this research is built on CSR. Subsequently, relevant conceptual avenues pertaining to the co-creation of value, corporate branding and employer branding are explored and analysed. An extensive literature review is undertaken to inform the robust development of an initially proposed conceptual framework of the main factors that impact upon this process. The proposed conceptual framework has set a broad guide for the researcher regarding the empirical fieldwork involved. The context for the research explores the notion of value co-creation within employer branding in the Omani hotel sector. To analyse value co-creation in depth, a qualitative interpretive multi-case study approach is adopted. The research also considers aspects of managerial philosophies and employees' perceptions regarding their organisations' current and future CSR activities, and how these activities impact value co-creation for stakeholders. The findings indicate that value co-creation has three major elements - it is dynamic and iterative, it requires dialogical interactions among various parties, and it leads to dualistic outcomes. The adoption of CSR increases the employees' satisfaction, whereas a lack of understanding of the CSR activities leads to the co-destruction of value, which in return affects the organisational turn-over in the long run. Therefore, creating awareness about the importance of the implementation of CSR is considered crucial, as it will benefit the organisation and improve the level of performance and loyalty of the internal stakeholders. The researcher proposes an original conceptual model on this tripartite nature of value co-creation and an analysis of how value co-creation can lead to the development of sustainable and socially responsible employer branding. An employee-oriented perspective towards value co-creation is introduced as an endeavour to enrich the area of research and address current conceptual deficiencies. The research also advances scholarship by critically assessing the role of employees as an independent but integral entity in the value co-creation process, establishing clear and robust links between CSR, value cocreation and employer branding.

Researchers who focus on strategic management and event management have used stakeholder theory to understand the relationships between a focal organization and its stakeholder. Nevertheless, achieving collaborative solutions can be difficult due to the widely varying values among actors as well as the influence of institutional forces such as legal or social norms. Furthermore, organizational, industrial, and national cultures in which these norms, values, morals, and ethics are embedded vary enormously. What varies culturally, however, is the perception of stakeholders and how a focal organization interacts with its stakeholders. What has yet to be examined in depth, however, is the relevance of national culture on stakeholder theory and factors that facilitate or impede networking and alliance formation for and through events in different cultural setting. The main research objective of the study is therefore to re-examine the relationship and interactions between a sports event organization and its stakeholders in Chinese culture. By conducting an ethnography study on a sport event company in Taiwan, this study attempted to perform a cultural configuration on the Western-developed stakeholder theory. The methods of data collection in this ethnographic study include participant observation, interviews, field notes, event analysis, and document analysis. Thick descriptions with detail the patterns of culture and social relationships in this specific cultural context are generated. A thematic was performed and thirteen themes emerge. Eleven of them are related to guanxi and concepts of stakeholder theory. The other two are not directly related but unique to the context of this study, i.e., the sport industry in Chinese society. Themes related to guanxi and concepts of stakeholder theory fall broadly into four categories: managerial level, organizational level, inter-organizational level, and macro level. The results suggest that Chinese culture does indeed have, at various levels, a profound influence on stakeholder theory. The finding of this study also indicates that the guanxi, renqing, and mianzi that embedded in Chinese culture could have a substantial influence on legitimacy, trust, and reciprocity that determine the way CEOs recognize and interact with their stakeholders. In conclusion, this study, coming from such an interpretivist viewpoint, uses an ethnographic approach to seek alternative and narrative accounts in a different national culture for stakeholder theory development. Lastly, limitations and recommendations for future studies are provided. / text

Abstract Problem background and problem discussion: The increased demands on companies and their ability to operate sustainably has made corporate social responsibility (CSR) a very hot topic in modern society. The academic debate has yet to put a definite answer on whether the engagement in CSR activities has a positive effect on a company financially. Previous research on stock listed in Sweden indicate that there is a positive relationship between environmental performance and that there is an asymmetry in how it is valued across company sizes. However, there has not yet been any research made into what impact size has on the value relevance of social CSR ratings. This will be tested by drawing from resource-based theory and legitimacy theory. Research question: How is the value relevance of social ratings affected by accounting for company size? Purpose: The purpose is to examine what effect the inclusion of corporation size has on the value relevance of social CSR ratings. Theory: The study primarily utilizes Stakeholder theory, the resource-based theory and legitimacy theory. Method: This is a quantitative study in a panel data setting with a deductive research approach. The practical method is a regression analysis that assesses the value relevance of CSR measures at the OMX Stockholm for the years of 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2011 and 2013. The study encompasses 349 Small-, medium- and large-sized companies and has a total of 1429 observations, which have been subject to statistical significance tests. Results and analysis: The results show that social, environmental and overall CSR ratings are value relevant and associated with lower market values. There also seems to be little impact on results by including company size as a variable. Furthermore the results of this study differ from previous research, implying that results are very sensitive to changes in the regression model. Conclusion: The results of the study lead us to believe that size has little impact on how value relevant social ratings are. This implies that regardless theory such as the resource-based and legitimacy theory these cannot be supported in practice among Swedish firms listed at OMX Stockholm. Furthermore, our method gives different results with regard to previous research done on the Swedish market and indicates that there is a negative relationship between CSR ratings and market value.

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Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has increased its presence in the business world, both due to the pressure of expectations from society to act responsibly as well as a rise in laws and regulation connected to CSR. As the world moves towards a greater focus on sustainability and social justice, the various kinds of businesses need to adjust themselves, where the concept of CSR can successfully be adopted to be prepared for these changes. In addition to CSR, stakeholder theory and instrumental stakeholder theory have been applied to answer the research question:   How do larger housing associations in northern Sweden work with CSR and how does CSR affect their performance?   Previous academic research regarding CSR in the housing market has not been very clear or distinct as there has been a scarce amount of research on this specific area. Earlier research done on CSR in the housing market could in this thesis therefore only be used as a minor point of departure. The goal with this thesis was thus to contribute to an extended knowledge referring if CSR can be a sufficient factor for housing associations performance. As the thesis is focused more on a deeper understanding of the subject, a qualitative research methodology has been employed. As for the data collection, semi-structured interviews have been conducted with four major housing associations in northern Sweden through online meetings and phone interviews. By choosing this type of data collection, the study could be more efficient in collecting the  data.    Our findings indicate that CSR can lead to both positive and negative performance-related consequences for a housing association. The lack of a shared approach towards CSR between the housing association and a stakeholder can result in disagreements with the stakeholder. Following and maintaining the advised and required reporting structure can lead to additional administrative costs and time needed. Two positive effects as a result of CSR that were generally perceived were how environmentally friendly materials and methods in the construction process led to reduced costs in the long-term, and how an ethical employee well-being program resulted in low sickness rates and staff turnover. Other positive effects were creating a strategic advantage in the form of brand loyalty through the use of ethical relationships towards their customers, as well as a perceived better profitability as a result of CSR usage.