This thesis aims to investigate the relationship between social sustainability and financial performance in Nordic large and mid-cap firms. Lately, there has been an increasing focus on ESG factors, however previous studies of the ESG factors’ relationship to financial performance have given mixed results. Moreover, in previous studies, the focus on social sustainability has fallen behind compared to the environmental and governance pillars. Therefore, the study analyses the relationship between the social pillar of ESG and financial performance, as well as the 4 social subcategories making up the social pillar. Thereby making the study a multi-ESG level study during the period 2018-2022. The study relies on a sample of 136 Nordic firms (123 for the ROE models) extracted from the LSEG database and tests the relationship between social sustainability and financial performance using nine panel regression models. Our findings are mixed, some showcasing negative, positive, and insignificant results. We find the social pillar of ESG to be a negative predictor of ROE, the social category of product responsibility was found to be a positive predictor of Tobin’s Q, and finally, the category of human rights was found to be a negative predictor of ROE. The other ESG variables were found to be insignificant as predictors of financial performance. The study thereby contributes to the research by investigating the under-researched pillar of sustainability, i.e. social sustainability, as well as shedding a light on the relationship in a Nordic context.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:hj-64588 |
| Date | January 2024 |
| Creators | Singh, Nathalie, Sørensen, Jonas |
| Publisher | Jönköping University, Internationella Handelshögskolan |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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