As the environmental crises have increased around the world in the past decades, companies have become more aware of the importance of sustainability and social responsibility. While large companies are required by law to perform sustainability reports, small companies do so on a voluntary basis. The purpose of this study is: (1) To investigate what factors affect the quantity of sustainability reporting amongst small, Swedish listed companies; and (2) To investigate how sustainability reporting has developed over the years in small, Swedish listed companies. A quantitative method with cross-sectional and longitudinal design was used in this study. Annual and/or sustainability reports and financial information from 53 companies were collected and examined. Furthermore, we conducted a content analysis with an index of keywords to quantify data from the annual and/or sustainability reports based on predetermined categories. The results show that there is a positive relationship between voluntary sustainability reporting and firm size amongst small, Swedish listed companies. No other relationships were detected in this study. The results further show a remarkable increase in sustainability reporting when studying the years of 2012, 2016 and 2020.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:hig-39320 |
| Date | January 2022 |
| Creators | Bjarnolf, Josefine, Westergren Gullberg, Viktoria |
| Publisher | Högskolan i Gävle, Företagsekonomi |
| 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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