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Frida Håkansson and Eric O’Neill

Impact of corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting

and communicating on employee commitment: a local

Swedish perspective

Business Administration

Master Thesis

Semester: VT-16

Supervisor: Stefan Hellman

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Preamble

After nearly 20 weeks of work, we finally have a finished product to present. It has been a

learning process with both setbacks and prosperity. The project allowed us to develop as

individuals and most importantly as a team, we rarely crossed wires and were both capable of

compromise and understanding which allowed us to work seamlessly and at pace when

needed.

We would like to thank our supervisor, Stefan Hellman for his guidance and creative feedback

and opponents of constructive criticism. We would also like to thank Bo Enquist for some

guidance along the way.

2016-06-03

Frida Håkansson Eric O’Neill

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Abstract

Title: Impact of corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting and

communicating on employee commitment: a local Swedish

perspective

Level: E-level, Master thesis in business and finance

Author: Frida Håkansson and Eric O’Neill

Supervisor: Stefan Hellman

Date: 2016-06-03

Key words: CSR, reporting, communication, perception, commitment

Background & problem: Engaging in CSR has become more important to all stakeholders

and has also become a large part of a companies’ business and reporting. By being informative

about the good work it may attract customers, investors and talent. The CSR reports are mostly

for customers and investors while employees’ knowledge is not prioritized. This is why we

chose to investigate the communication of CSR engagements to the employee stakeholder and

to observe if this impacted upon their organizational commitment.

Purpose: The purpose of the study is to get a deeper understanding of the quality of CSR-

reports as a communication tool and to what extent the communication of CSR-related

engagements affects employee commitment.

Method: This study is built on a qualitative research strategy with four case studies. A

qualitative content analysis was undertaken on the CSR reporting from each company and 3

semi-structured interviews per company were conducted.

Results & Analysis: The results of the study shows that there is a lack of communication on

CSR engagements to one of the core stakeholder groups, the employees. Three out of four

studied companies produce a well-executed CSR report but the employees were not aware of

the information it contained. This shows that employees must be informed via another

communication channel. Involving employees in projects for example is good in order to

strengthen employees’ awareness.

Conclusion: None of the companies use the CSR report to communicate the message to

employees even though the reports are very well executed. One result from this study is that if

companies want their employees to know about their CSR engagements, it has to be

communicated through other channels than public CSR-reports. All interviewees agreed that

they do talk about their employer to people on the outside which is why communicating this

type of information could be beneficial in the long run.

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Table of Content

1. Introduction ............................................................................................................... 7

1.1 Background .................................................................................................................................... 7

1.2 Problem discussion ........................................................................................................................ 8

1.3 Research Purpose .......................................................................................................................... 9

1.4 Research Questions ..................................................................................................................... 10

2. Theoretical framework ............................................................................................. 11

2.1 Corporate Social Responsibility ................................................................................................... 11

2.1.1 Chosen definition of CSR ....................................................................................................... 12

2.2 Quality of CSR reports and reporting of CSR engagements ........................................................ 12

2.3 Communication and perception .................................................................................................. 14

2.4 Commitment ............................................................................................................................... 16

2.5 Legitimacy theory ........................................................................................................................ 18

2.7 Summary ..................................................................................................................................... 20

3 Methodology ........................................................................................................... 21

3.1 Case Study ................................................................................................................................... 21

3.1.1 Sample – Chosen Case studies .............................................................................................. 21

3.2 Content Analysis .......................................................................................................................... 22

3.2.1 Selecting categories, sub categories and indicators ............................................................. 23

3.2.2 Setting a scoring system ....................................................................................................... 25

3.3 Interviews .............................................................................................................................. 26

3.3.1 Ethics and Implementation ................................................................................................... 27

3.3.2 IKEA’s refusal of our interviews proposal ...................................................................... 28

3.4 Data analysis ................................................................................................................................ 28

3.5 Trustworthiness ........................................................................................................................... 29

4. Results ..................................................................................................................... 32

4.1 IKEA .............................................................................................................................................. 32

4.1.1 Reporting .............................................................................................................................. 32

4.1.2 Communicating .................................................................................................................... 33

4.1.3 Perception ............................................................................................................................. 33

4.1.4 Commitment ......................................................................................................................... 33

4.2 Nordea ......................................................................................................................................... 33

4.2.1 Reporting .............................................................................................................................. 34

4.2.2 Communicating .................................................................................................................... 34

4.2.3 Perception ............................................................................................................................. 35

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4.2.4 Commitment ......................................................................................................................... 35

4.3 EY ................................................................................................................................................. 36

4.3.1 Reporting .............................................................................................................................. 37

4.3.2 Communicating .................................................................................................................... 37

4.3.3 Perception ............................................................................................................................. 38

4.3.4 Commitment ......................................................................................................................... 39

4.4 SWECO ......................................................................................................................................... 40

4.4.1 Reporting .............................................................................................................................. 41

4.4.2 Communicating .................................................................................................................... 41

4.4.3 Perception ............................................................................................................................. 42

4.4.4 Commitment ......................................................................................................................... 42

5. Discussion ................................................................................................................ 44

5.1 Research Question 1.................................................................................................................... 44

5.2 Research Question 2.................................................................................................................... 45

5.3 Research Question 3.................................................................................................................... 47

5.4 Summary ..................................................................................................................................... 48

6. Conclusion ............................................................................................................... 50

References ...................................................................................................................... 51

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Acronyms

AOC Affective Organizational Commitment

BFL Bokföringslagen

CSR Corporate Social Responsibility

GRI Global Reporting Initiative

IAS International Accounting Standards

IFRS International Financial Reporting Standards

OCB Organizational Citizenship Behavior

OID Organizational Identification

ÅRL Årsredovisningslagen

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1. Introduction In the introductory chapter, the chosen topic for the essay is presented which further leads to a

problem discussion. In addition, the aim of the thesis and research questions are formulated.

1.1 Background In this thesis, the quality of CSR-reports, the communication of CSR-related engagements to

employees and its impact on employee commitment will be examined. Putting effort and

resources to a more sustainable world has become paramount in today's society and is essential

to be competitive in today's market. People’s awareness of how our behavior affects the world

has increased as well as the awareness of the impact of companies’ behavior. It can be anything

from pollution (that destroys the sea and nature), carbon dioxide emissions (which leads to a

rise in temperature of the Earth) and littering etc. (Miljö & Utveckling, 2014) to labor issues

like everyone should work under reasonable conditions, human rights should be considered and

economic profitability must prevail. Every decision made within a company should be well

considered and it applies things like transportation, working conditions, economics etc. The

companies are licensed by society to produce what is demanded but production needs to be

done according to the rules and norms prevailing (Cadbury, 2006) and if that is done, companies

become legitimate, which means they are considered to be responsible by the society.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is a relatively new concept in Sweden. During the 20th

century efficiency was the main focus, rather than the legitimacy of Swedish companies. In the

US, however, the concept of CSR was used as early as in the mid-1950s. The term was used to

describe the commitment to social issues (Jutterström and Norberg, 2011). They argue that the

cultural differences between countries may be the reason for the big difference in the use of the

term. Further they discuss how our behavior affect people and the environment and that it was

not considered to be a problem in Sweden during that time which is why participation in the

public debate had no effect on the legitimacy of companies in Sweden. CSR is the social and

environmental responsibility companies have toward the surrounding world.

One important factor to take into account, is stakeholder skepticism because of the potential

motives behind the engagement in CSR issues. Du et al. (2010) therefore say that it is important

to communicate with the outside world in order to prevent or at least minimize skepticism

among stakeholders. Companies mainly have two motives for their engagement in CSR and

sustainability, either a genuine interest in CSR issues and a better world, or just to increase own

profits. The first mentioned has a positive effect on the company's image and reputation, while

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the latter is selfish and will most likely have a negative impact which might cause a loss in

profits. This means that if the engagement is of genuine interest, companies will benefit from

communicating their work to interested parties but if the objective is purely selfish, companies

should be more careful with the communication because it could have negative consequences

(Du et al. 2010). Everything done within a company is more or less assumed to benefit the

company which applies CSR engagements as well. It is therefore important not only to engage

in CSR issues, but to communicate that engagement to make the world aware of it too in order

to benefit from it in the long run.

1.2 Problem discussion There is a lot of research on voluntary information (where CSR is included) and the topic is

global and comprehensive (Cooke, 1989). Previous studies focus mainly on identifying the

factors that best explain the type and amount of voluntary information companies choose to

disclose. There are plenty of studies that examine the factors that affect the information

disclosure of companies and what is already ensured by most researchers is that the size of the

company, indebtedness and national differences have a significant effect on the amount of

information disclosed (Cooke, 1989; AdRem, 1999; Meek et al. 1995, Broberg et al. 2010;

Barrett 1976; Meek and Gray 1989; Elsayed and Hogue 2010).

However, the research in the area of stakeholder influence and perception of CSR reports is not

that extensive (Hahn and Kühnen, 2013). According to Habisch et al. (2011), there is a lack of

research in terms of the importance of dialogue with the stakeholders in the preparation of CSR

engagements.

In recent years there have been numerous studies (Samanta et al. 2013, Zheng et al. 2015 Ditlev-

Simonsen, 2015; Kruger, 2015) revolving around the benefits of CSR and the stakeholder

groups impacted by it. A large proportion of these reports tend to revolve around the financial

benefits of CSR (Lin et al. 2009) which incorporates the validity of CSR from the perspective

of the customer and the shareholders. The reports appear to be designed for customers and

shareholders. Contested in the last decade, is that CSR, directly or by proxy has become more

and more associated with the strategic goals of a company (McDonald et al. 2008) CSR

objectives become paramount to a business’s strategy and in some industries this impacts

drastically on previous business models (Perez, 2014; Perez and Del Bosque, 2012).

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Considering the employees are the face of the company there is a distinct lack of research on

employees’ knowledge and understanding of CSR. The focus is on the impact of

communication of CSR to employees (Duarte et al. 2014; Ditlev-Simonsen 2015) and how that

affects employees’ commitment to the organization. In the course of this research the voluntary

nature of the reporting and the voluntary nature of a company’s CSR engagements overall is

considered (Enquist et al. 2008). It is shown that effective communication of CSR activities is

positively related to reputation which increases the attractiveness as an employer. Therefore,

communicating CSR may result in a competitive advantage on the labor market (Raub &

Blunschi, 2014). They further suggest that the perceived meaning in work could be increased

by organizational engagement in CSR. When engaging in CSR, companies positively contribute

economically, socially and environmentally within their societies. Such engagements allow

employees to construct a positive identity both for themselves and the organization by

enhancing the image of the company. Also, engagement in CSR can have beneficial effects on

employees (Raub and Blunschi, 2014). The authors also state that making employees aware of

its corporate engagements in CSR, they perceive themselves as together with their organization

and that they can make a positive difference for the environment and other people. This is what

is called commitment. Research shows that a company's CSR engagements influence attitudes

and behaviors such as organizational identification (OID), job satisfaction, commitment, trust

and employee attraction and retention, of employees (Brammer et al. 2015).

An employee’s perception of a company’s CSR activities impacts greatly on their opinion of

the company and by proxy their commitment in the case of recent studies (Duarte et al 2014,

Duarte & Neves 2012; D’Aprile & Taló, 2015). CSR represents the intangible things that can

attract and retain talent which is why well designed and delivered communication can be used

as an important tool for retaining and attracting that talent (Bhattacharya et al. 2008). As stated,

when the values of a company and that of the employees are in congruence, it will have a

positive impact on employees’ overall commitment to the organization (Meyer et al. 2002).

1.3 Research Purpose The purpose of the study is to achieve a deeper understanding of the quality of CSR-reports as

a communication channel. The research will also assess how the communication of CSR-related

engagements to employees affects employee commitment.

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1.4 Research Questions 1. How does the quality of CSR reporting influence how companies communicate its CSR

engagements to employees?

2. How does the level of communication effect the employees’ awareness and perception

of the companies CSR goals?

3. How is employee commitment affected by an organization’s CSR engagements?

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2. Theoretical framework In the section of theory, previous research that is relevant to the chosen topic will be presented.

Definitions of key concepts and theories are also presented.

2.1 Corporate Social Responsibility The concept of CSR is something highly discussed because it is about social responsibility and

sustainability. One problem in this area currently, is that there is still no concrete definition of

the term (McWilliams, Siegel & Wright, 2005). There are as many definitions of the term as

there are researchers in the field (McWilliams et al. 2005), which means that each researcher

could make his/her own definition of it. One problem with this is that it causes difficulties in

comparing results from previous studies to each other (McWilliams et al. 2005). It is common

however to associate CSR with ethics and moral and McWilliams et al. (2005) defines CSR as

situations where the firm goes beyond what is written in law and engages in actions that are

social good and that are beyond the interest of the firm itself.

It is common for researchers to break down the concept into different categories, which means

that the definition differs. For example, Jutterström and Norberg (2011), divide the term into

three categories; human rights, environment and working conditions. They choose not to

highlight the economic factor as it is a constant which cannot be diminished. CSR is about being

effective in the right way according Jutterström and Norberg (2011).

CSR is a broad concept which can be divided into several areas. One way to make the division

is to use the areas of economic, social and environmental responsibility (Grankvist, 2009).

Economic responsibility means that you will secure the financial position. Social responsibility

is to be regarded as a good corporate citizen, and then follow society's expectations. Social

responsibility also means that the company's employees should be happy and work under decent

conditions. A healthy balance between sex, ethnicity and age must exist and discrimination

should not occur. The environmental responsibility means that the company will conduct its

business with the least possible negative impact on the environment and natural resources.

According to Grankvist (2009), there should be an interaction between the three areas. A

company cannot just focus on maximizing profits and not take into account what is happening

in the outside world. But it is not okay just thinking about society and ignoring its primary

purpose, producing and selling. A good interaction between the areas means that the business

has a good durability in the long term.

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Cadbury (2006) argue that CSR has become a cultural term, where the aim is to encourage

companies to be socially responsible but also to discourage them from not being socially

responsible. Cadbury's definition of CSR is that the company's continued existence is based on

a major agreement between the company and the community. Companies are "licensed" by the

community with the task to produce what is demanded but there are rules on how production is

allowed to be done. Within the term for what the company produces include products and

services, but also to create jobs (Cadbury, 2006). Within the framework of CSR is also included

to make the best out of the society’s resources and minimize environmental degradation. He

also believes that companies should do their utmost to minimize the negative effects of its

actions and not just follow the lowest acceptable standards. To live up to the expectations of

stakeholders could lead to the company becoming competitive in the market. Another point that

Cadbury (2006) attaches great importance is that it is equally important to work to respond to

consumer demand as it is to work against environmental damage. Total focus cannot be on

CSR.

2.1.1 Chosen definition of CSR

The chosen definition of CSR is based on an assessment of Dahlsrud’s (2008) now much

referenced work on 37 definitions of CSR. In terms of our study we need a definition to

encompass the voluntary aspect, the environmental aspect and the social aspect whilst referring

to our focus stakeholder group of the employees.

“In general, corporate sustainability and CSR refer to company activities

voluntary by definition demonstrating the inclusion of social and environmental

concerns in business operations and in interactions with stakeholders”

(Van Marrewijk 2003 taken from Dahlsrud 2008 p.11)

2.2 Quality of CSR reports and reporting of CSR engagements The mandatory information is data which all companies by law must present while the voluntary

information is entirely up to the company itself to report or not. What is mandatory to present

according to accounting standards (IFRS paragraph 10) is; income statement, balance sheet,

statement of changes in equity, cash flow analysis, comparison of previous years' accounts and

notes explaining the above-mentioned parts. Apart from the global standards there are also rules

within Sweden and mandatory information to report due to Swedish law is: a balance sheet,

income statement, notes and management report. For companies listed on the Large Cap, a

financial analysis is also required (FAR, 2016). The annual report shall be in accordance with

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Årsredovisningslagen (ÅRL) and Bokföringslagen (BFL). Everything apart from what has just

been mentioned is voluntary information.

Hahn and Kühnen (2013) and Holder-Webb et al. (2009) highlight one problem that because of

the lack of legislation in the presentation of voluntary information, it makes it difficult to

compare CSR reports as there is no set template or determined format. Companies can choose

to highlight what they consider important and even actively choose not to share information

and in some cases withhold data. They therefore highlight the need for more research on the

quality of CSR reports. Since the disclosure of CSR information is voluntary, it allows for

companies to be selective and strategic in terms of the reports contents which in turn affects the

quality of the report in terms of a true and fair overview of the companies’ behavior.

When decisions are made within a company, they are carefully and strategically considered

with a purpose to somehow contribute positively to the company. That also applies to the

preparation of CSR reports. Companies have strategies for their actions and Hahn and Lülfs

(2013) and Holder-Webb et al. (2009) suggest that it is a remarkable lack of communication of

what they call "negative aspects" and that it generally contains only positive aspects. Negative

aspects are by Hahn and Lülfs (2013 p.401) defined as “negative ecological and social impact

caused by corporate activity”. This means that the CSR reports have become a way for

companies to promote themselves as it almost only consists of positive events and positive

work/aspects with the aim of strengthening the reputation and legitimacy (Higgins and Walker

2012; Castello´ and Lozano 201; Hahn and Lülfs, 2013). Hahn and Lülfs (2013) further discuss

that in order to give a "true and fair view" of the company’s CSR engagements, companies

should also disclose negative impacts on the environment, human or nature. This statement is

based on the fact that stakeholders demand transparency in the reports. To present reports that

are transparent, companies need to communicate its full behavior in order to show that they

comply with the norms of the society (Philippe and Durand, 2011).

In an attempt to address the problem of companies presenting themselves from solely a positive

angle and also to try and create a form of standardization, the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI)

was formed. This is an institution that provides companies and the public with standardized

accounting guidelines which challenge companies to report both positive and negative aspects

of its CSR engagements (Hahn and Lülfs, 2013; Hahn and Kühnen, 2013). Currently it is a

voluntary undertaking for companies to follow these guidelines, but they are considered to be

”the de facto global standard”.

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A probable reason for companies choosing to disclose positive information only is connected

to stakeholder perception and image protectionism. Disclosure of negative aspects will only

have negative consequences if it is perceived as negative and not in line with society's norms

and values of the stakeholders (Hahn & Lülfs 2013). If the negative aspects disclosed are

considered as natural and expected by stakeholders, disclosure of the information will not lead

to reduced legitimacy and the reputation will not be damaged. It may rather have the opposite

effect. A company that consciously chooses to disclose comprehensive information, including

negative aspects will be perceived as more honest, trustworthy and reliable (Archambeault et

al. 2008) which will benefit the company in the long run and skepticism will decrease.

Companies reduce information asymmetry by actively report their CSR-related activities

(Philippe & Durand, 2011). The reports produced today seem to be ambiguous and arbitrary

due to the lack of standards for this type of reporting, a problem that is tried to overcome with

the GRI guidelines. To show a more accurate picture, a true and fair view.

Due to the information above, we have formulated our first research question as follow:

1. How does the quality of CSR reporting influence how companies communicate its CSR

engagements to employees?

2.3 Communication and perception It is shown that effective communication of CSR activities is positively related to reputation

which increases the attractiveness as an employer. Therefore, communicating CSR may result

in a competitive advantage on the labor market (Raub & Blunschi, 2014). They further suggest

that the perceived meaning in work could be increased by organizational engagement in CSR.

When engaging in CSR, companies positively contribute economically, socially and

environmentally within their societies. Such engagements allow employees to construct a

positive identity both for themselves and the organization by enhancing the image of the

company. It signals that the organization cares about the surrounding world and the well-being

of others, a good corporate citizen (Raub and Blunschi, 2014). If this perception is reached, it

will increase task significance which Raub and Blunschi (2014 p.11) define as “the degree to

which the job has a substantial impact on the lives or work of other people—whether in the

immediate organization or in the external environment.” Raub and Blunschi (2014) find that

CSR awareness predicts task significance and was positively related to job satisfaction, helping

behavior, voice behavior and personal initiative. CSR awareness was also negatively related to

emotional exhaustion.

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If high task significance is reached, employees discretionary work behavior will change for the

better in the way that employees will adapt an organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) where

motivation is important. There are two types of OCB, helping behavior and voice behavior.

Helping behavior is basically about helping and supporting others. Voice behavior is about

trying to help improving work processes or procedures by making constructive suggestions.

(Raub & Blunschi, 2014).

The findings of Raub and Blunschi’s (2014) research show that engagement in CSR can have

beneficial effects on employees. The authors also state that making employees aware of its

corporate engagements in CSR, they perceive themselves as together with their organization

and that they can make a positive difference for the environment and other people. These

perceptions do they call “meaningful work”. Lee et al. (2013) also found that employee

perception of CSR was closely related to commitment via the attachment that the perceived fit

of CSR on the employee would make them more attached to the organization and was also

closely related to improved performance and also had a positive impact on turnover. Ditlev-

Simonsen’s (2015) findings also set a viable precedent to understand that commitment will be

affected by an employee’s perception of their organisations CSR commitments.

Communicating CSR engagement to employees is in Raub and Blunschi’s (2014) study also

shown to benefit the organization in terms of improved job attitudes and greater engagement in

discretionary work behaviors. The organization’s core business is more likely to be perceived

as meaningful by employees when they have the opportunity to observe the good the

organization is doing in their daily work (Raub & Blunschi, 2014).

Another interesting thing the authors highlight is that the education of employees regarding the

organization’s CSR engagement should be executed on the lower levels of the hierarchy (in

each local office for example). In that sense, it is easier to make every employee aware of the

CSR activities and it facilitates rapid decision-making, fosters participation and it allows

rewarding of special efforts of individuals. Kim et al. (2016) also focus on the mediating factor

of internal communication. They proposed the simplistic aspect of directly communicating to

staff via team meetings or clearer and more accessible communication points. So what can be

seen is by communicating the CSR initiatives directly to the staff they found a positive

correlation between overall CSR and staff commitment and in turn a reduction in turnover

intentions. Raub and Blunschi (2014) also state that how the CSR communication to employees

is done has a great meaning. Employees should not be informed by newsletters that the

organization is supporting a particular charity, employees need to be able to understand why the

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company is engaging in a particular initiative and how the initiative is contributing to well-

being of others in order to identify the meaning with the CSR initiative. A nice way of making

employees aware of CSR engagement is to allow them to actively participate. Personal

involvement will lead to a better understanding of the desired achievements (Raub & Blunschi,

2014). The previous studies of Grant, (2008) and ter Hoeven & VerHoeven, (2013) also found

that communication developed stronger awareness and this led to greater involvement in CSR

initiatives and through this involvement there was greater commitment.

ter Hoeven & Verhoeven (2013) focus more on the flow of information as the determinant of

commitment. They base this on both quality and direction of this flow and its intended audience

which was similarly found in (Kim et al. 2016; Bhattacharya et al. 2008). One aspect they found

in their study was when the communication was directed at distant stakeholders, the Affective

Organizational Commitment (AOC) diminished or was not affected (Aquino & Reed, 2002).

Their finding too returned to a common thread of social identity and involvement as precursors

to improving AOC through CSR (Grant, 2007; 2008). Grant (2007; 2008) also says that CSR

communication should be part of the greater corporate communication and the flow of

information is the key to employees understanding the companies’ CSR engagements.

Due to the information above, we have formulated our second research question as follow:

2. How does the level of communication effect the employees’ awareness and

perception of the companies CSR goals?

By “level of communication” it is meant to what extent the CSR engagements are

communicated. All kind of communication is included, not only the CSR reports.

2.4 Commitment Organizational commitment can be defined differently and concerns both internal and external

forces based on the personal perceptions and beliefs (Meyer et al. 2002), of in this case the

employees. From the employer’s point of view, a committed employee represents an employee

who would go the extra mile for the company. However, this blind following of a company

would be at a detriment to the employee him/herself as their commitment to an organisation

would be at a cost to other aspects in their lives and also in terms of those who commit for

reasons that do not include their own happiness. This would lead to potentially higher turnover

or reduced productivity.

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There are different types of commitment because researchers choose to define and name the

concept differently. A couple of examples are continuance commitment and normative

commitment and if greater knowledge about the two is desired, see Meyer (1991; 1997).

Although, as with other studies (Ditlev-Simonsen 2015; Farooq et al. 2014; Collier & Esteban

2007) we too will in this study use the definition and aspects of affective commitment. Affective

commitment, routed in a personalised connection to the organization, whereby the employee

through their own volition has identified him/herself with the organization and is emotionally

attached to it and thereby affectively committed to the organization (Meyer 1991, 1997, 2002).

Affective commitment is also called AOC but will forward on be referred to as “commitment”.

The running logic is based primarily on previous studies of Ditlev-Simonsen (2015) that

denotes Scandinavia as a freer labour market that we are studying four cases on a local level in

a country whereby there is currently a strong job market for educated and qualified individuals

and we will focus on commitment most associated with employee values and personal goals.

Meyer (1997) define commitment as something whereby the employee feels their goals and

values are congruent with that of the organization, and essentially, the most relevant in the

proposed study with the mediating or contributing aspects of CSR communication and of CSR

perception. He also points to behavioural commitment, a process by which the employee

becomes “locked in” to a company or organisation and the processes and methods they use to

deal with this. For this study the previous works in Scandinavia (Ditlev-Simonsen, 2015) would

eliminate this aspect as there is freedom of movement, no gender inequality, a distinct lack of

power distance coupled with a steady belief of pursing one’s happiness and goals (Hosftede,

2010).

Wang et al. (2013) argue that perceived corporate citizenship does affect the commitment but

more so via the mediating variable of organizational identity and organizational trust (Ruppell

& Harrington, 2000; Farndale et al. 2014; D’Aprile & Taló, 2015). They stated that CSR

engagement create social exchanges between an employer and employee which lead to

increased trust in the organization and in turn increase commitment. Their findings referenced

the possibility that CSR by way of commitment influence many other behaviours relative to

absenteeism, performance and organizational citizenship (D’Aprile & Taló, 2015; Duarte et al.

2014). Yousaf et al. (2015) also found a correlation in commitment and employee turnover, that

stronger commitment had a positive effect on turnover. It was also found that CSR engagement

directly communicated to employees had an impact on trust, intimating that the employer was

caring and respectful (Farooq et al. 2014).

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Research shows that a company's CSR engagements influence attitudes and behaviors

(organizational identification (OID), job satisfaction, commitment, trust and employee

attraction and retention) of employees (Brammer et al. 2015). OID means according to

Brammer et al. (2015) that the employee can identify himself/herself with the organization, that

is to say that the organization has similar values and stands for similar things as the employee

himself/herself. Overall, OID is associated positive results in terms of attitudes and behavior of

employees.

Bhattacharya et al. (2008) were assessing if CSR gave employees a sense of meaning to their

work. Acknowledge that their study showed that there was a lack of awareness and in most

cases a complete lack of involvement in the companies CSR engagements. They also touched

upon one of the greatest challenge when internalising the marketing of CSR engagements and

that it is in keeping with other employee related reward systems, one size does not fit all. Their

work in this case was focused also on the possibility to retain talent by communicating and

involving employees in a company’s CSR engagements. They found that if the companies CSR

engagements and endeavours were representative of the soul of the company, they were most

likely to attract and retain employees by identification.

Due to the information above, we have formulated our third research question as follow:

3. How is employee commitment affected by an organization’s CSR engagements?

2.5 Legitimacy theory For companies to be successful in today's society, they must always think twice before making

a decision. A small slip can have major consequences. It is important not only to produce what

is in demand, but production, transportation and warehousing, etc. have become as important

as the product itself. Companies strive to follow the demands of society and win its acceptance

and thereby become legitimate (Deegan & Unerman, 2011).

The legitimacy ensures that companies are constantly acting within the society’s boundaries

and norms and Deegan & Unerman (2011) argues that the theory ensures that corporate

activities are perceived as legitimate by the rest of society. The authors also claim that society's

limits and standards are constantly changing and it is therefore important that companies

constantly adapt to these changes. If an organization is considered to be legitimate, it is acting

within the bounds and norms of the society. Maignan and Ralston (2002) agree that legitimacy

theory is based on a reciprocal relationship between the firm and its stakeholder and most

19

importantly the maintenance of this relationship. Bayoud et al. (2012) also point to the fact that

higher levels of CSR disclosures are associated with corporate reputation and this is in keeping

with the reciprocal nature of the relationship with the stakeholder groups, the disclosures must

ring true with the stakeholders for legitimacy to be achieved and with ever changing societal

needs and wants its imperative a company adapts and takes care of their relationships with the

varying stakeholders, in this scenario CSR acts as a company’s self-created legitimacy

framework.

Deegan and Underman (2011) cite Suchman from 1995 who explains the theory this way: "A

generalized perception or assumption that an entity’s behavior is desirable, proper or

appropriate to the norms, values, beliefs and definitions that have been built up.". Many

companies practice CSR because of the legitimacy and use it to create any kind of publicity or

a chance to affect anything. Moir (2001) cites Davis, that companies cannot use their actions to

create legitimacy, but that it is society that gives companies the ability to be legitimate and that

society therefore expects companies to act responsibly.

20

2.7 Summary The purpose of the study is to examine the quality of CSR-reports and to what extent the

communication of CSR-related engagement to employees affect employee commitment. A

CSR report is by us considered to be a good communication channel where the organization

can disclose all information they want stakeholders to know. Although, the quality of CSR

reports varies due to the lack of legislation of its preparation (Hahn & Kühnen, 2013; Holder-

Webb et al. 2009). As mentioned above, committed employees also lead to employees

identifying themselves with the organization which make them more likely to stay within the

organization (Lee et al. 2013) which means that committed employees are something every

organization strive for. Our model for this is that the quality of reported information (box

number one in the figure below) will affect the communication of the message (box number

two in the figure below) and good communication will affect employees’ perception (box

number three in the figure below) of the message which in turn will affect employees’

commitment to the organization (box number four in the figure below). The figure below is

designed by us personally.

Quality of reporting Communication PerceptionCommitment(Affecti

ve commitment)

Figur 1 shows the model on which the theory is based

21

3 Methodology In the chapter on methodology, approach and the design of the study are applied. Further, the

strategy and the methods that have been selected to conduct the study are described. The

chapter ends with source criticism.

3.1 Case Study The study is a case study which aims to examine in depth or gain a deeper understanding of

carefully selected cases, which can either consist of one or a few objects of investigation.

Denscombe (2009) argues that the case study is designed for the researcher to be able to

combine different methods to produce as much information as possible. Observations and

interviews are the most common methods to use when conducting a case study according to

Bryman and Bell (2013). However, other methods can be used as well. Chosen method for this

study is to carry out semi-structured interviews supplemented by a qualitative content analysis

of sustainability reports.

According to Denscombe (2009), the benefits of a case study is that it allows triangulation in

terms of method combination and the use of multiple sources. Another advantage is that unlike,

for example surveys, it provides the researchers with the opportunity to deal with the realities

and social processes. Another advantage with the case study is that the researchers do not need

to be in control of events since the researchers want to study the case of a natural phenomenon.

One of the case study's weaknesses is that it makes it difficult to apply the results to other cases

and the ability to generalize is therefore limited. One difficulty with the case study is if the

study is based on written documents, such as sustainability reports, these can be difficult to

access. It may also be difficult to determine which documents should be included or omitted

and thus define the limits of the study. (Denscombe, 2009)

This study is of multiple character which means that the number of cases included in the study

is more than one. The number of cases in this study is four. What is unique and common to the

selected cases is something that the researcher with this design can consider.

3.1.1 Sample – Chosen Case studies

We have consciously chosen the four companies IKEA, Nordea, EY and SWECO for this study.

Our selection is strategic, based on these requirements: Swedish located companies, large

companies, different industries, operating in Karlstad and declare some form of CSR reporting.

Investigating headquarters where CSR reporting is mostly produced would have given us

“perfect” and biased answers and we wanted respondents that were not direct involved in that

22

type of work. Our interviewees were presented to us by our contact within the company which

means that the final selection of interviewees were not in our control. Each interview was held

separately. Unfortunately, IKEA disagreed on meeting us for interviews which gives us a total

of nine interviews since an interview was held with three people from each company. Each

company is referred to as single cases which means that the study consists of four case studies.

We chose IKEA as a leading company in sustainability and a company perceived as forward

thinking in terms of their environmental and societal impact.

Our reasoning for including Nordea was to take a leading domestic bank who in recent years

has invested heavily in improving their image via their efforts in addressing their CSR.

EY was chosen based on an ethical stand point. Their role in sustainability is not only internal

to their own organization but also in terms of their role as key advisors in economic terms to

their clients.

SWECO was chosen because they are one of Europe’s leading engineering consultants, they

market themselves as world leading urban planners and consultants “We plan and design the

communities and cities of the future” (SWECO.se). This was intriguing to the researchers, to

assess if their CSR reporting was in keeping with such a grand statement.

The study was conducted on a local scale with the logic that even though it was Karlstad is a

city of just under 100,000 it was representative of a large percentage of the workforce of the 4

companies. We felt a lot of the workforce would work in similar cities or smaller communities

and not head office.

3.2 Content Analysis A qualitative content analysis was conducted in order to determine the quality of CSR reports

of our chosen companies. This method is according to Bryman and Bell (2013), the most

common approach for qualitative analysis of documents.

Content analysis is a technique used to extract information from a body of material, by

systematically and objectively identifying specific characteristics of the material (adapted from

CP Smith, 2000 p.28). In terms of what we are trying to achieve in our own endeavour, we want

to decide the quality of the content of our case studies.

For our paper we set out to find a link between CSR reporting and commitment and as our

theoretical model shows there are many other aspects that play a role in that feat. One of them

23

being the quality of reporting and information and the means in which it is delivered to the

stakeholders and the public in general. We declare a knowledge of intranets in all our chosen

companies but have no direct access to these reports in order to judge and give us a comparison

or reference point as to what was determined as quality reporting, from an internal perspective

our results are determined by reports and internet publications available to the general public

We used the guidance of Calabrese et al. (2015). Their structure was simplified and they

determined that to garner the information we required to deliver our thesis we would use two

of their three phase model as we were not looking at the customer, mass questionnaires were

not going to be our method of data gathering when it came to second part of our work.

However, phase one would be the assessment of a company’s CSR disclosure of their

commitments this would entail a content analysis of a company’s CSR reports and websites

where information pertaining to CSR was readily available to the public and stakeholders

(Calabrese et al. 2015).

Calabrese (2015) opted to follow the homogenous GRI based CSR indicators in order to score

their study. This was common in other studies (Daub 2007; Morhardt 2002; Bouten et al. 2011)

Also a theme that was found in the other studies especially (Calabrese 2015; Daub 2007;

Morhardt, 2002) it was the very nature of GRI guidelines that meant even in unrelated industries

it was made possible to find commonalties in differing reports from differing companies and

also in terms of formats of reports. (Daub, 2007) Pointed to the fact to fully comply with all

GRI guidelines would be a near impossibility or an incredible feat so we were not going to look

for compliance but to use the guidelines as for want of better words, guidelines, within our own

studies as they represented as close to possible a one size fits all category base (Daub 2007;

Morhardt, 2011). But by using GRI it correlates with Guthrie et al. (2004) who advise using

scoring and categories from well-grounded literature to increase the reliability and replicability

of the results It may be duly noted we seem to be one of the few studies if any (authors have

not located) who are attempting to assess the quality of reports from the singular perspective of

the internal stakeholder group of the employees.

3.2.1 Selecting categories, sub categories and indicators

Morhardt (2011) provided one of the most extensive reviews of recent studies which

incorporated content analysis of CSR or sustainability reporting within the collection studied

24

Morhardt (2011) observed studies who focuses on environmental (Cormier & Magan 2003;

Chan & Welford 2005) studies who reported online (Branco & Rodriguez 2008) and studies

that dealt with numerous other categories including social economic and labour rights. The

common theme was even if these studies didn’t follow GRI exactly it was clear their categories

and subcategories had some roots or came directly from GRI guidelines but again as our next

model shows all told it is an exceptional amount of indicators and on basic review none of our

cases report at the scale needed to justify inclusion of all these indicators.

On assessment GRI current guidelines from 2013 present eight key categories and subsequently

29 sub categories or themes -

· Report Content

· Company profile

· Economics

· Environmental

· Labour practices & decent work

· Human Rights

· Society

· Product

These eight categories each had sub themes or categories (see appendix 3-7). These were

selected based on relevance to our case studies.

The difficulty was how to dictate what stays and what goes, what is relevant and what is not

relevant. In general terms as Morhardt (2001) said, GRI is both in-depth and generic

simultaneously so it can be argued all indicators are relevant. Other studies chose to follow

most of the categories or in the case of Daub (2007) he did not use a like for like listing but

more his own adaptation of weighted indicators. In our case as this content analysis is not the

entire thesis we must again look to streamline this by earmarking key indicators in terms of the

chosen stakeholder group that through other works have proven to have an effect. The reason

for omissions is that one cannot score points for matters others are not either declaring or

exposed to Example IKEA’s labour and environmental have far differing contexts to Nordea so

we will assign sub themes and indicators that are relevant throughout the cases.

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3.2.2 Setting a scoring system

Some form of scoring system had to be set that allowed us to determine who was reporting and

at what level they were reporting again to reemphasise we contended that the quality of reports

would reflect in the quality of communication of the companies CSR engagements. As was

found in Moravcikova et al. (2015), this in turn would affect perception by the employees and

by proxy have an impact on the commitment of the employee (Ditlev-Simonsen 2015).

The scoring system chosen is based on Daub (2007) and also using some ideas from Morhardt

et al. (2001; 2011). We opted for a numerical scoring system, and the categories were going to

be based directly on the GRI guidelines which acted as well-grounded literature. Artistic licence

were taken as some of the companies were not visually reporting to GRI guidelines and some

of the sections were not going to be equal across the board which means that in some cases a

slightly different direction or meaning to the ones laid out in in the GRI were taken (see

appendix 3-7 for full scoring explanation). Also, the liberty to remove some guidelines were

taken and this again was based on us adopting a cross industry case study and felt it

unreasonable to add criterion that only some of the cases could qualify in. IKEA would stand

out here as a manufacturer they have far greater need for control over products and labour

situations in foreign lands

The scores of 0-3 are listed below and allowed for definition to which companies were

performing best. The scores returned showed that this system was valid as it created reasonable

separation between two companies who on the face of it should have been extremely close.

0 - No meaningful information is provided on the specific criterion.

1 - Patchy or at best anecdotal information is provided.

2 - The reporting provides good information on the criterion. But lacking full data

3 - The reporting includes full information to the criterion, including statistics and follow up.

The reason a scoring system as above fits the intended methodology as there are far too many

differing reporting formats and certain aspects of GRI guidelines weigh heavier in certain

industries – (banking ethical, engineer environmental) so word counting is assumed to not be a

valid way to analyse content. Second to this on first perusal it became evident some companies

would be simply superior on word content and may not be a true reflection of topics and issues

covered within their overall CSR reporting and by using this scaled scoring system and

26

qualitative approach data can be found that should be easily replicated if another study as to

follow the applied system.

3.3 Interviews In order to answer the purpose of this paper and to gain a better understanding how that effect

employee commitment, interviews will be held with three people from each one of the chosen

companies.

There are some specific issues that need to be answered in order to achieve the purpose of the

study. To achieve the deep understanding that is desired, follow-up questions based on the

respondent's answers are to be allowed. There should be room for small talk, but the discussion

must always relate to the prepared questions relating to the purpose of the study. Due to that,

semi-structured interviews will be held because they are the best fitted ones (Bryman & Bell,

2013) based on the purpose.

Semi-structured interviews are according to Bryman and Bell (2013), a term that covers many

different examples of interviews. It is usually a situation where the interviewer has a set of

questions that can generally be described as a questionnaire, but where the order of the questions

may vary. The questions also tend to be more generally formulated than in the structured

interviews, for example. There is also space for the interviewer to ask follow-up questions

depending on the respondent's answers.

Contextually there was some form of rigidity in terms of the structure of our interviews. The

questions were mapped out in line with the theoretical framework. The questions were asked in

a format that covered all these areas (interview questions can be found in appendix 8). The

employees’ viewpoint and qualified opinion on the quality of reporting, the ways in which the

companies CSR engagements were communicated to them, how this communication impacted

upon their perception of the company and lastly if the companies CSR engagements impacted

positively on the employees’ commitment were desired.

We were aware of some basic aspects that could cause problems/biased results and we opted

for the semi structured approach to circumnavigate these issues. One clear issue we would

encounter and did encounter was that of the interviewees’ understanding of the terminologies.

For example, we were taking a very English and modern term Corporate Social Responsibility

or CSR and potentially demanding answers to an audience who be more used to the Swedish

term ‘Hållbarhet’. We also determined the word ‘Hållbarhet’ would be more readily associated

27

with environmental and social issues, so we again had a process that allotted for us to guide the

interviewee in terms of developing or helping them realise their understanding of the subject

matter was greater than they assumed.

We wanted the interviewees to be comfortable and create a scenario where we engaged in a

conversation (Bryman & Bell, 2013) as opposed to rigid closed questions. All interviewees had

permission to participate and they were given full anonymity in terms of allowing them to not

use their names. One disadvantage was the possibility that the answers would vary greatly so

they were difficult to analyse (Bryman & Bell, 2013). The problem was overcome via a clear

structure and in the analysis the answers were found to be comparable and the variation was not

problematic but added to the research. In terms of the first thought of sending a mass

questionnaire this again would have proved futile as our terminologies caused problems but by

being flexible (Bryman & Bell, 2013) we could encourage the interviewee to open up and by

doing this we found not only were our interviewees far more knowledgeable on the subject

matter than initially thought they were giving in their personal opinions on improvements and

what they wanted which was in essence the main reason for this approach.

3.3.1 Ethics and Implementation

Before the interviews were held, each interviewee was well informed of the purpose of the

study and the contribution of the interview which enable us to satisfy the information

requirement that the interviewees were not given false pretenses (Bryman & Bell 2013). The

information gathered during the interviews was well explained to each interviewee that it would

be used for scientific purposes only (this study). Bryman and Bell (2013) call it “useful

requirement”. In order to achieve the confidentiality and anonymity requirement according to

Bryman and Bell (2013), the identity of all interviewees are kept anonymous. Communication

with interviewees were held via email which also is how time and place for interviews were

confirmed. The interviews were recorded using the recording feature of our mobile phones. In

order to avoid technical problems, the method was tested several times before the interviews

were conducted. One negative aspect of recording the interviews is the importance to consider

that the respondents may not feel confident in being recorded which may influence the answers

(Bryman & Bell 2013). However, this was not considered to be a problem because each

respondent was asked before the interviews if recording was allowed and all interviewees

agreed to this. The main advantage of recording the interviews is that full attention can be kept

on the respondent and his/hers answers to the questions and a complete account of the answers

is obtained (Bryman & Bell, 2013). We are two people working on this study and both of us

28

participated during all interviews. Each interviewee got to choose whether the interview would

be held in Swedish or English. The interviews that were held in Swedish were afterwards

translated into English.

3.3.2 IKEA’s refusal of our interviews proposal

All four companies were contacted with a clear brief of what our intended thesis was going to

be and we even went as far to declare that we had no intentions of damaging a company’s

reputation or had any cynical intentions with our work. We requested the chance to interview

personnel that fitted the profiles we mapped out. These interviews would then be combined

with our content analysis to generate the findings for our thesis. Initially through a contact we

had positive feedback from IKEA, sadly very late in the process we were informed by their

head office that their local staff would not have the time to partake in our project. We were

quite taking aback by this as all our preliminary study of IKEA would have pointed to an

exceptionally well positioned company in terms of modern CSR issues. We decided to still

include IKEA as we felt through our first content analysis they would represent the standard

bearer in terms of how CSR reporting should be delivered, because akin to the other companies

their CSR reporting was externalized and available to us. However, since no interviews were

held with employees from IKEA, the employees’ perception of communication and its effect

on employee commitment could not be analyzed. We firmly believe that the interviews from

the other three companies which were open, honest and unrestricted provided us with results

and information that meant overall the loss of the IKEA interviews did not affect the quality of

our thesis or the quality of the results.

3.4 Data analysis All interviews were recorded and transcribed, which according to Bryman and Bell (2013)

facilitates the analysis, but is however a time consuming process. Because of the time limit, the

number of interviews were limited due to that time frame. The presented theory state that

employees will become more committed if they can identify themselves with the organization

they work for which means that they somehow have to take part of information they find

meaningful. CSR is something that has become more meaningful to people and the theory also

state that if CSR activities are communicated to employees they will become more committed

as well. A CSR report is considered to be a good source of communication which is why we

make a content analysis on the chosen companies CSR reports and what they disclose on their

official websites to assess the quality of the reports which is the source of communication.

Interviews were also held with employees at the chosen companies to get inside information

29

about how the communication of CSR activities work in practice. The data will be analysed

through a comparison between what have been stated in theory and the results from the content

analysis together with opinions of the interviewees.

3.5 Trustworthiness Firstly, the collection of data, we painstakingly collected and transcribed all of our interviews,

all interviewees were approached in advance and given a clear guideline as to our intentions,

this was supported by a letter to the companies which also mapped out our intentions and we

offered the opportunity of receiving the questions in advance but our preference was the

interviewees would come “unprepared” so we got more “clean” answers. We did this to

approach. We took this approach to ensure the data we collected was trustworthy this combined

with the public availability and easy assessment of the other complimentary data (reports) we

felt we took all measureable steps to ensure our data was trustworthy and easily traceable

Reliability is related to another criteria of research that of replication. To be able to assess the

reliability of a measure of a concept the methodology and procedures that make up that measure

must be replicable (Bryman and Bell, 2013). Although far more common found in quantitative

research this does have a bearing on qualitative in the sense you can ask the question if the same

research was conducted in the under the same circumstances would the research yield similar

results. In terms of our study, we acknowledge both language and the general nature of semi

structured interviews cannot be exactly replicated (Bryman & Bell, 2013) however the design

of our interview questionnaires determined that we asked the same questions to all participants.

Of course individuality determines the outcome of how these questions would be answered in

the future as opposed to a more simplistic questionnaire. In our defense we quickly established

that a questionnaire using the keywords vital to our studies would have a failed because of A,

lack of knowledge of terminologies and B, lack of connectivity to terminologies amongst our

interviewees, this allowed us to conclude that although our numbers were less than a blanket

issued questionnaire our data proved to be potentially more valid in terms of an overall

assessment of the subject matter.

Staying on the subject of reliability, we also designed a scorecard system of which we are

confident it can be replicated and the results from any other researcher would be close to exact

or exceptionally similar to our results if the system we laid out was followed exactly. This was

achieved by basing our scoring system on GRI guidelines which are available and easily

30

explained via multiple sources plus of course the data we used was public information in the

form of annual reports, sustainability reports or websites

Validity is another criterion prevalent in qualitative research, and refers to the integrity of the

findings that are generated. Studies (Bryman & Bell, 2013) tend to divide validity into internal

and external perspectives.

Internal refers to the validity of there being a match or correspondence between the data and

the theories developed from it. Throughout the process of analysis, we found correspondence

between the data gathered and that of the theories we researched we had not set out to develop

new theories but more so to see if a small city could enlighten us on the successful implications

of CSR in larger companies.

External reliability refers to the possibility of the research being generalized or applied to a

social setting. (Bryman & Bell, 2013) Point out that qualitative research is exposed to criticism

as it can often be deemed too subjective and more so difficult to replicate or generalize in bigger

population samples as the initial sample is generally deemed too small. We specifically

designed the questions to allot for further detailed surveying by each case study company’s and

all questions would demand very little editing to allow them to be yes or no answers or scaled

for questionnaire purposes. We note that ironically as opposed to being restrictive the fact that

we were face to face allowed us to realize that some of our interviewees were in fact very well

aware of the subject matter but not aware of the terminology so had they answered to a mass

survey it is likely they would have responded negatively when in fact they did have knowledge

of the subject matter.

Bryman and Bell (2013) also allude to the fact that part of the criticism arises from the lack of

transparency in qualitative research it is difficult to fully establish the researchers approach and

or motives. In terms of the thesis we have been as transparent as possible and recorded and

transcribed all interviews word for word with direct relevance for the study some part where

redacted at the interviewees request and we agreed that in those cases it was a reasonable request

as it had no direct relevance to our case.

We acknowledge there will always be a subjective nature to qualitative research but we also

felt that the subject matter of CSR is so broad it in itself is not researchable by blanket

31

questionnaires as CSR is a subjective matter differing aspects of it appeal to differing people so

generalized questionnaires would not give one access to the deeper kind of knowledge needed

to asses such a subject matter.

32

4. Results The section of results consists of a clear presentation of the results.

4.1 IKEA Table 1 shows basic information about IKEA

Revenues

(2015)

Number of

employees

Industry Location

IKEA 32,7 billion

euro

155 000 Furniture/Home

decoration

worldwide

IKEA is one of the biggest furniture companies in the world with 328 stores worldwide. IKEA’s

vision is to "create a better everyday life for the many people". Their mission is to offer a wide

range of well designed, functional home furnishing products at prices so low that as many

people as possible can afford them. In order to offer the customers affordable quality, they work

hard to optimize the entire value chain. They build long-term relationships with suppliers,

investing in automated production processes and produce large volumes. Further, the vision

extends beyond home decorating. IKEA want to create a better everyday life for everyone

affected by the company. 155 000 people are working at IKEA and 107 400 of them in Europe.

Revenues of 32,7 billion euros in 2015. (ikea.se)

4.1.1 Reporting

In the content analysis of the CSR report, IKEA scored 86 out of 87 points, as can be seen in

the table below, which is reflective of the empirical evidence that was available to us. For

detailed scoring inclusive of themes and sub themes, see appendix 4.

Table 2 shows the results from the content analysis of IKEA

Category IKEA’s Score Maximum score

A: Report Content 12 12

B: Company Profile 12 12

C: Economic 6 6

D: Environment 12 12

E: Labor Practice 14 15

F: Human Rights 15 15

33

G: Society 12 12

H: Product 3 3

TOTAL SCORE 86 87

4.1.2 Communicating

As can be seen in the results from the content analysis, IKEA has an excellent

CSR/sustainability report where they communicate on everything they do. The researchers have

not data relative to employee’s opinions.

4.1.3 Perception

IKEA uses the communication channel CSR report in full, which means it can be seen that they

want to communicate the CSR engagement, but the researchers cannot see how the information

is communicated to the employees and how employees perceive the communicated message.

4.1.4 Commitment

Due to IKEA not meeting us for interviews, there is no data to present on how CSR engagement

affect the commitment of employees at IKEA either.

4.2 Nordea Table 3 shows basic information about Nordea

Revenues (2015) Number of

employees

Industry Location

Nordea 10 140 million

euro

32 300 Bank and financing In 16 countries

worldwide

Nordea is one of the big four banks in Sweden and has deep Nordic roots. Nordea's family tree

includes about 300 banks that has been founded since the 1820s and onwards. Through mergers

the number of banks was reduced to around 80 banks in the 1970s and 30 banks in the 1980s.

In the 1990s, there were four major banks left that formed the new banking group; Nordbanken

in Sweden, Merita Bank in Finland, Unibank in Denmark and Christiania Bank og Kreditkasse

in Norway. Nordea has always aimed to help their customers to reach their goals. Nordea does

now exist in 16 countries worldwide with a network of full service branches, subsidiaries and

representative offices. Nordea’s home markets are Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland,

Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Russia. Apart from the home markets Nordea is also established

in Great Britain, Germany, Luxemburg, Poland, Brazil, China, Singapore and the USA. Around

34

32 300 people are working for Nordea and the revenues stayed at 10 140 million euro in 2015.

(nordea.se)

4.2.1 Reporting

In the content analysis on the CSR reporting, Nordea scored 75 out of 87 points (86%). Nordea’s

CSR reporting is therefore considered to be of high quality. For detailed scoring inclusive of

themes and sub themes, see appendix 5.

Table 4 shows the results from the content analysis of Nordea

Category Nordea’s Score Maximum score

A: Report Content 12 12

B: Company Profile 11 12

C: Economic 5 6

D: Environment 10 12

E: Labor Practice 13 15

F: Human Rights 11 15

G: Society 10 12

H: Product 3 3

TOTAL SCORE 75 87

4.2.2 Communicating

During the interview we asked a very direct question relative to how the company

communicated its CSR engagements. Nordea interviewees seemed to have a positive opinion

on this factor and all 3 felt in general that their company communicated its csr engagement

well.

NO01: “Yes they do. We have clear projects and information that tell us about

our responsibility and how we are being sustainable”

NO02: “Yes there are lots of information readily available and there is a focus

on the issues and is something the company is looking to improve all the time”

During the interview process some interviewees pointed to an intranet that was in use for both

projects that they directly involved and other information such as code of conduct and staff

policies that would be pertinent to our studies. However not having direct access meant we

35

needed to find if the public available information matched. One aspect that could be considered

strange the question was put to the interviewees, if they were given a specific CSR or

Sustainability report would it better allow them to understand CSR in general and their

company’s engagements? It was deemed a bit strange that two responders from Nordea agreed

with our question but this was in opposition to the fact Nordea have an extensive

communication process even producing a specific sustainability report on an annual basis.

4.2.3 Perception

The findings pointed to strong relationship between the interviewees’ perception of CSR and

the actual projects they were involved in. In Nordea’s case, all interviewees had a direct

involvement in their current project called “ekonomipejl” which is a current national project

run by Nordea where Nordea send their professionals to local schools in order to discuss general

economics and money management with youth (around 13-17 years old). It was found that they

were also very aware of the star funds which is a current investment project by Nordea. Nordea

invests in companies in developing countries which have potential but fall short standards.

Nordea visits and imposes strict standards on the company in return for capital and intellectual

capital investment. The interviewees understood this project from economic, environmental and

societal perspectives and could readily connect it to CSR.

NO01: “Yes in terms of ekonomipejl, Nordea helps my perception, this is a

positive project and a strong commitment form the company in terms of social

responsibility”

NO03: “My perception is connected to what I am informed about really, but I

suppose my involvement in ekonomipejl gives me a larger perception of how we

as a financial institution impact society or can positively impact society, it is

something I never thought of before the project”

4.2.4 Commitment

Similarly, with the perception section of interview questions the researchers opted for a direct

method of questioning. The interviewees were asked how they felt the company’s CSR

engagements and their knowledge of these aspects affected their commitment to the company.

All respondents were in agreement that if Nordea was to degenerate its CSR efforts it would

impact upon their future within the organization in a negative.

36

NO02: “yes is my company started to act badly I don’t think I could continue to

work here and one other thing that affects me here is the group I work in, if this

group was unmotivated or unhappy this would make it hard for me to be here too”

NO03: “We had a recent scandal but I think us working here now see that as OLD

Nordea, so if we started to behave like that again of course it would be difficult

to be here”

On the contrary one respondent was adamant that their commitment to the organization was

closer related to continuance commitment than affective commitment

As part of this section the researchers wanted to gauge whether the interviewee was willing to

promote the company to potential talent and again findings showed they were

NO01: “At the end of the day I have to earn money and I have to provide for my

family so this would always come before what do you say non tangible things.

Lastly it was asked if they were committed to Nordea, 2 from 3 respondents agreed and said it

was a combination of factors that made them commit, but generally they were a good company

with good intentions. Whilst one respondent defined their commitment from a selfish

perspective “I am committed because for me it’s exciting to work here” plus feeding his family

was the core aspect that kept him committed.

4.3 EY Table 5 shows basic information about EY

Revenues (2015) Number of

employees

Industry Location

EY 16 443 000 USD 190 000 Accounting and

Auditing

In 150 countries

worldwide

EY, previously called Ernst & Young, is one of the big four companies within accounting in

the world. EY is a global leader in auditing, accounting, tax, transaction and advisory services.

Their services and insights helps to build confidence and sustainable growth in the financial

markets and economies worldwide. EY was originally two different companies (one founded

by Arthur Young and the other by Alwin C Ernst in the early 1900s) and remained two

companies until 1989 when the companies were merged and became EY. The global head office

37

is stationed in London and the Swedish head office is to be found in Stockholm. The company

has 700 offices in 150 countries and there are 57 offices in Sweden. 190 000 people are working

for EY and around 2 320 of them work in Sweden. In 2013/104 did the global revenues reached

a level of 27,4 billion USD and 3,2 billion SEK in Sweden. (EY.com/se)

4.3.1 Reporting

As can be seen in the table below, EY scored 67 points out of 87 (77%) in the content analysis.

For detailed scoring inclusive of themes and sub themes, see appendix 6.

Table 6 shows the results from the content analysis of EY

Category EY’s Score Maximum score

A: Report Content 12 12

B: Company Profile 10 12

C: Economic 2 6

D: Environment 9 12

E: Labor Practice 13 15

F: Human Rights 9 15

G: Society 11 12

H: Product 1 3

TOTAL SCORE 67 87

4.3.2 Communicating

In the interview process a very direct question was asked relative to how the company

communicated its CSR engagements. EY interviewees seemed to have a positive opinion on

this factor and all three felt in general that their company communicated its CSR engagement

well.

During the interview process, some interviewees at EY as well pointed to an intranet that was

in use for information sharing such as code of conduct and staff policies that would be pertinent

to our studies. However not having direct access meant we needed to find if the public available

information matched. One finding that seemed odd, the question was put to the interviewees;

“If they were given a specific CSR or Sustainability report would it better allow them to

understand CSR in general and the company’s CSR engagements?” and bizarrely all responders

from EY agreed it would even though EY have an extensive communication process revolving

38

around their CSR engagements and even produce a specific sustainability report on an annual

basis.

EY03: “Yes, I think it would and I think it would help me to understand what CSR

really is above all. I might already know a lot of things they are doing but I am

not aware that it is part of CSR.”

EY01: “Yes, both my general understanding of CSR and the company’s

engagements in CSR. Absolutely, there are lots of things that I am not aware of

that the company do that really is CSR but I am not aware that it is related to CSR

[...]”

In the interviews at EY, as with all interviews, the interview opened with a selection of

questions designed to determine the interviewees’ general understanding of CSR. In the case of

EY, the three interviewees’ understanding of CSR would not have been at the same level CSR

is defined in this thesis. The findings pointed to a potential confusion of mixing of the terms of

CSR and sustainability and not connecting those. However, as the interviews progressed and

the interviewers offered more context to the concept of CSR it became more apparent that the

interviewees’ actual understanding of CSR was greater than they determined by themselves.

EY03: “Yes it would, and it would help me to understand more about what CSR

is, above all. You may already know pretty much about what the company does,

even though you are not aware that it is CSR work.”

EY01: “Yes, both my general understanding of CSR and also the company’s work

with CSR. Absolutely. There sure are lots of things I do not know, that the

company does that actually is CSR but I am not aware it is CSR related. At least

am I not thinking of it like that.”

4.3.3 Perception

When asking about the interviewees perception of CSR, questions were asked form their

company’s engagement and communication of it. The findings pointed to strong relationship

between the interviewees’ perception of CSR and the actual projects they were involved in. The

newer employee we talked to had not perceived the information related to CSR. The new start

employee had only taken part of basic information that had personal effects, which includes

issues such as holiday conditions, working conditions, how to treat each other in the office, etc.

39

EY03: “Well, actually, I do not really know. But I guess it is what affects me

personally. Then the company does a lot of good things of course that does not

affect me directly as a person, I think. For example, the environmental things and

stuff, am I not very much aware of.”

People in higher potions within the company had more knowledge of what the company does

beyond that which can be classified as basic. One specific project that was mentioned was “the

global talent and tab”, a project in which Indian labor is used to some extent. The top manager

explains it as:

EY01: “[…] we have ‘global talent and tab’, in which we use Indian labor to

some extent. […] where we have a huge responsibility to bring our culture and

our corporate values and that it really applies there as well and that they are as

good as they can. We have employees here at the office in Karlstad, who have

been on a visit in Bangalore several times and say that it is very good and it is

lots of people applying for jobs there all the time who want to work.”

It was desired to find out whether the employees own values match the values of the company

and therefore a direct question was asked relative to that and got the following answers

EY03: Yes, but I think so, absolutely.

EY02: Yes, I think so, otherwise I would not enjoy working here. […]

4.3.4 Commitment

Similarly, with the perception section of interview questions we opted for a direct method of

questioning “see sample question”. The interviewees were asked how they felt the company’s

CSR engagements and their knowledge of these aspects affected their commitment to the

company.

All respondents were in agreement that if EY was to degenerate its CSR efforts it would impact

upon their future within the organization in a negative way.

EY03: Mm, I think it does, if, yes, but as I said, if you would be unhappy with that

kind of stuff, […] I think that the desire to look for something else that would feel

better would be higher.

40

EY02: “Yes, if the conditions for me as an employee would change it would,

otherwise, no.”

However, at EY, all interviewees shared the opinion that the company does not have any major

impact on the environment which is why they all referred to their commitment was related to

the good working conditions and the social part of CSR. The environmental part was considered

important as well but it had no impact on their commitment to the company.

EY01: “Yes, I would say, [...], especially the staff conditions.”

EY03: “I think it is fun to work here, and good relations with the colleagues [...]

if you do not feel comfortable with that, I think one would leave pretty soon but I

have enjoyed working here and I feel that I am proud working here and think it is

a good company”

EY02: “Well, things like personnel management and conditions are of course

very important. If it would not be as good as it is, I would not feel comfortable

either. We have good relationships internally and have a lot of fun here at the

office.”

And about the environmental aspect

EY02: “I think it is important too, but as EY is a company that does not have such

a large impact on the environment in general, I would not say that it is something

that affects my commitment to EY directly.”

4.4 SWECO Table 7 shows basic information about SWECO

Revenues Number of

employees

Industry Location

SWECO Ca. 16 billion

SEK

14 500 Engineering Mostly in

Europe

SWECO is an engineering company that offers qualified consulting services in engineering,

environmental technology and architecture. SWECO is established in Sweden, Norway,

Denmark, Finland, Estonia, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Poland, Czech Republic, Germany,

Netherlands, Belgium, England and Turkey. The company also carries out tens of thousands of

41

missions in 70 countries worldwide to ensure clean water, efficient infrastructure and

sustainable energy solutions. The number of employees at SWECO is 14 500 where 5 600 of

them work in Sweden. The revenues amounted at approximate 16 billion SEK where 6,8 billion

SEK in Sweden in 2015. SWECO is located in 50 cities in Sweden. (sweco.se)

4.4.1 Reporting

SWECO scored 40 out of 87 points (45,7%). For detailed scoring inclusive of themes and sub

themes, see appendix 7.

Table 8 shows the results from the content analysis of SWECO

Category SWECO’s Score Maximum score

A: Report Content 4 12

B: Company Profile 8 12

C: Economic 2 6

D: Environment 4 12

E: Labor Practice 6 15

F: Human Rights 8 15

G: Society 6 12

H: Product 2 3

TOTAL SCORE 40 87

4.4.2 Communicating

The interviewees were asked a very direct question relative to how the company communicated

its CSR engagements. SWECO’s interviewees displayed a common thread that their company

did not communicate their CSR engagements at a relevant level.

SW03: “Indirectly maybe as there is always rhetoric about taking responsible

for the environment and so no, but I haven’t directly noticed anything as such.”

SW01: “Not in the context that it is packaged or communicated as CSR.”

During the interview process, as was the case at EY some interviewees at SWECO pointed to

a comprehensive intranet that was in use for information sharing such as code of conduct and

staff policies that would be pertinent to our studies also including some mandatory tests for

42

corruption that all staff undertook. Again however useful this information was it was not

available to us to fully analyze, so again the question was posed, whether they were given a

specific CSR or Sustainability report would it better allow them to understand CSR in general

and the company’s CSR engagements.

SW02: “What would actually help is if we had practical examples connected to

the work we do as opposed to just single page policies that are meaningless as all

they are is words on a page that we as staff are obliged to acknowledge”

SW03: “Absolutely or at least I could connect what we do to the different aspects

better with a report. I don’t know how it should look but a general report would

help me fully understand all our CSR work and I suppose how it impacts on me”

4.4.3 Perception

It was desired to glean information relative to the interviewees’ perception of the company’s

engagements and of this would be via how well it was communicated. The interviewees at

SWECO had mixed levels of perceptions in terms of how they perceived their companies CSR

engagements. But also they were very perceptive of the shortcomings in communications.

When asked what their perception of CSR was, we followed closely with a question about

whether their company matched their perceptions

SW02: “No even if you talked for two days about this, to me its only words. I feel

anyone can write these words but do we do them, I am not sure about that and

that’s a different story”

Although more absorbent of what was being discussed the more senior staff member was still

clear in the lack of direct CSR communication affecting his perception.

SW01: “I suppose SWECO shapes my perception of CSR, it feels after this

conversation my perceptions in general have risen, but maybe SWECO needs to

be better at enlightening us on what they are doing in terms of CSR”

4.4.4 Commitment

A direct method of questioning, similar to the perception section of interview questions was

used. In this section a question relative to the companies continued CSR engagements and if

they were to degrade them how this would impact on our interview was asked

43

SW01: “We take no short cuts and are well supported here as workers, so if this

degraded I would of course leave”

SW03: “Yes of course if SWECOS’s moral compass deviated from mine I think I

would have great difficulty remaining here (names other company) they are

involved in fracking and other questionable activities I could never work for

companies who operate in those grey areas”

The interviewees were also questioned on their values and most importantly if the company’s

value’s and theirs were in congruence.

The newest start was encouraged to consider other intangibles aspects that SWECO offered as

a follow on to the values and commitment question

SW03: “Yes it was important to me moving here that company I imagined and

read about was the company I would work for. Money was not the most important

thing, I would have been disappointed if it was less, but on reflection would

probably still have signed as SWECO has other attributes that appeal to me.”

The middle management interviewee also pointed the values of the company and him were in

congruence adding the element of prestige to values he saw as important

SW02: “They are a company that doesn’t take short cuts, they do things right.

People see SWECO as the Rolls Royce of consultancy and you pay for that but we

are expected deliver at that level too.”

44

5. Discussion In this chapter, the results will be analyzed, compared and contrast different findings from our

cases, discuss their relativity to our theoretical framework and in doing so answer our research

questions.

5.1 Research Question 1 1. How does the quality of CSR reporting influence how companies communicate its CSR

engagement to employees?

In some respect the answer to this question lies in the reasoning behind a company’s publication

of their CSR engagements in the form of CSR reports and Websites. In terms of theoretical

reference our findings would certainly intimate that legitimacy (Deegan & Underman, 2011)

would have been a determinant factor in some companies. NORDEA, a major financial

institute, seemed to increase their publication quality over the recent years including developing

societally beneficial projects, as the staff were not overtly aware of these publications it maybe

be fair to theorize that combination of legitimacy and image enhancement were reasons for

these reports, similarly with EY whose staff also were unaware of the reports. But we got no

full explanation for SWECO’s seeming lack of CSR reporting. The lack of any form of negative

information within the publication of all companies assessed would hold true with Hahn and

Lûlfs (2013) and Holder-Webb et al. (2009). They all state that it is a lack of negative aspects

communicated within the CSR reports and that they generally contain only positive aspects.

This means that the CSR reports have become a way for companies to promote themselves as

it almost only consists of positive events and positive work/aspects with the aim of

strengthening the reputation and legitimacy (Higgins and Walker 2012; Castello´ and Lozano

201; Hahn and Lülfs, 2013). The results of our study show that the CSR reports were not used

as a tool for communication with employees at all which means that the design of the reports

and the content of them do not have any great significance in terms of employees and their

understanding of the companies' CSR work. As a result of that, due to employees understanding

of CSR engagement it does not matter whether the reports consist of negative aspects as well

or not. Since the CSR reports are not used in communication with employees, the quality of the

reports does not matter.

In the case of IKEA, their investments in sustainability and CSR seems to be part of a more

comprehensive brand management strategy which may have its roots in legitimacy and brand

management (Hahn and Lülfs, 2013). This brand management connection may be compounded

45

by them refusing our interviews whilst having the most comprehensive reporting and

information relative to their sustainability and CSR engagements.

In terms of communicating to staff using the CSR reports we found in NORDEA the staff were

aware of one project/product that was included in the public reports and this was their Fundstars

and at EY the staff were not in tune with the public report at all. SWECO we cannot really

determine as they were not reporting publicly to any great extent.

Overall the sensation was the reports available to the public were generally aimed at external

stakeholders. One can interpret this from a simplistic standpoint that the case companies were

informing their customers and shareholders of their current engagements but by the same token

one cannot overlook the positive elements in terms of brand, image and legitimacy. One

anomaly we found that deserves greater scrutiny, was NORDEA’s project Ekonmipejl was not

in any way aggressively marketed outward which would seem slightly at odds with engaging

in CSR for marketing purposes (Higgins and Walker 2012; Castello´ and Lozano 201; Hahn

and Lülfs, 2013). It would also be remiss of us not note that all companies had internal

communication channels and intranets which staff accessed information but again these seem

unrelated or directly sourced from the public reporting as the staff knowledge of the

engagements that were publicized was not strong. Previous researchers agree that employees’

personal involvement will lead to a better understanding of the desired achievements (Raub &

Blunschi, 2014; Lee et al. 2013; Grant, 2008; ter Hoeven & VerHoeven, 2013) which the results

from this study strengthen due to the lack of awareness that the CSR reports even exist. The

lack of awareness of CSR reports existence thereby gives the answer to the first research

question, the quality of CSR reports has no impact on communication to employees and their

commitment to the organization.

5.2 Research Question 2 2. How does the level of communication effect the employees’ awareness and

perception of the companies CSR goals?

Through our theoretical research we found many previous studies concurred that

communication to the employees were essential in making the employees aware of the

companies CSR engagements (Grant 2008 & ter Hoeven & Ver hoeven 2013) and this may

seem like common sense but we cannot overlook that in our research we did find that staff were

not poorly informed of the company’s CSR engagements and in some cases were poorly

informed in general. Our findings showed in some cases it could have been the terminology

46

that acted as a barrier to understanding but in our interviews we encouraged all interviewees to

consider the core factors that made up CSR work.

It was found in line with previous research (Kim et al. 2013) that the level of communication

with employees would affect their perceptions of the companies CSR engagements.

Comparatively SWECO who had the lowest score and the poorest public available information

had also the least informed staff. Evidence form an interview with staff member showed they

did not rate the one page CSR policy highly and felt it was “only words” and something they

had to sign stating there was no evidence of it being actioned. From this perspective the

employee perceived the companies CSR engagements cynically. Raub and Blunschi (2014)

suggest that the perceived meaning in work could be increased by organizational engagement

in CSR. When engaging in CSR, companies positively contribute economically, socially and

environmentally within their societies. Such engagements allow employees to construct a

positive identity both for themselves and the organization by enhancing the image of the

company. It signals that the organization cares about the surrounding world and the well-being

of others, a good corporate citizen. Although, our results show that it does not appear as Raub

and Blunschi (2014) explain if the only thing employees’ see are some letters on a piece of

paper.

This would also impact their perceptions ranging from assuming the company did good things

but also same employee was convinced SWECO and his moral compass were in line so this too

followed the theory that perception was based on “perceived fit” between employee and

company (Lee et al. 2016; Raud & Blunchi 2014). This was also evident in terms of answers

we received from EY and NORDEA staff members.

Lastly, findings showed that the companies who had made the efforts to communicate to the

employees were rewarded with well-informed employees (Kim et al 2016) who viewed their

companies action in a positive light. The organization’s core business is more likely to be

perceived as meaningful by employees when they have the opportunity to observe the good the

organization is doing in their daily work (Raub & Blunschi, 2014). At EY there was evidence

to show staff were clearly aware of what they were entitled to and how their career paths were

going to form. In the case of NORDEA all staff perceived their company to be a good corporate

citizen as they were well informed of certain core projects which generated a sense of pride and

this it must be noted was in the middle of a very poor PR period for the company.

47

Overall the research showed that even in 2016 in companies who have high grade CSR policies,

strategies and communication there was a failure to fully communicate to staff. This leads to

mix perceptions among the varied interviewees, but in real terms those best informed positively

perceived their company’s CSR engagements and believed their company to be socially

responsible and spoke highly of their employee. Contextually good communication will lead to

positive perception which is in line with Raub and Blunschi’s (2014) results as well. Another

interesting thing Raub and Blunschi (2014) highlight is that the education of employees

regarding the organization’s CSR engagement should be executed on the lower levels of the

hierarchy (in each local office for example). In that sense, it is easier to make every employee

aware of the CSR activities and it facilitates rapid decision-making, fosters participation and it

allows rewarding of special efforts of individuals. This is also in line with the study of Kim et

al. (2016) who also focus on the mediating factor of internal communication. They proposed

the simplistic aspect of directly communicating to staff via team meetings or clearer and more

accessible communication points. So what can be seen is by communicating the CSR initiatives

directly to the staff they found a positive correlation between overall CSR and staff commitment

and in turn a reduction in turnover intentions. Our results show that what employees were most

aware of, were stuff they had been told and projects they were personally involved in which is

in line with what previous research has found as well. Employees should not be informed by

newsletters that the organization is supporting a particular charity, employees need to be able

to understand why the company is engaging in a particular initiative and how the initiative is

contributing to well-being of others in order to identify the meaning with the CSR initiative

(Raub & Blunschi, 2014) which is also what has been found in this study.

The researcher’s recommendations would be to communicate to the employee stakeholder no

bad can come of it. One cannot expect employees to work towards CSR related strategic goals

if they remain poorly informed or uninvolved. Most importantly, through communication one

can ensure an employee will view the company in a positive light.

5.3 Research Question 3 3. How is employee commitment affected by an organizations CSR engagements?

Theoretically it has been proven in previous research that Employee commitment is affected by

the CSR engagements of a company (Ditlev-Simonsen, 2015; Lee, 2013). The focus was on

affective commitment (Ditlev-Simonsen, 2015) which entailed the more intangible aspects of

what made an employee commit to a company and in our findings these aspects rang through.

All but one interviewee felt the intangible aspects of their job and company were important to

48

them to the point of it impacting on their ability to continue within their respective companies.

Previous research has come to the conclusion that perceived corporate citizenship does affect

the commitment but more so via the mediating variable of organizational identity and

organizational trust (Ruppell & Harrington, 2000; Farndale et al. 2014; D’Aprile & Taló, 2015).

As previous research, we duly noted that all our interviewees were adamant that if their

companies degraded their CSR efforts or appeared to be a poor corporate citizen they would

find it extremely difficult to continue in their position. This is also how Meyer (1997) and

Brammer et al. (2015) describe employee commitment, something whereby the employee feels

their goals and values are congruent with that of the organization and that he/she can identify

himself/herself with the organization. This was in keeping with previous research of D’Aprile

and Taló (2015) as well, that focused on organizational trust as a mediating factor in employee

commitment. It was apparent that the interviewees did have faith and trust in their organization,

this was intimated more so by the staff at NORDEA which deserves more time in future studies

as staff maintained this stance even in the midst of a PR crisis.

The researchers observed that employees were both, most committed to and aware of projects

they were directly involved in or they had directly communicated to them and these project

impacted on their overall commitment to the organization. This is previously stated by Raub

and Blunschi (2014) where they say that personal involvement will lead to a better

understanding of the desired achievements. Previous studies of Grant, (2008) and ter Hoeven

& VerHoeven, (2013) also found that communication developed stronger awareness and this

led to greater involvement in CSR initiatives and through this involvement there was greater

commitment. In real terms, all staff asked claimed they were committed to their companies.

With one particular employee stating they felt their values and SWECO’s values matched which

was in keeping with Meyer (1997) in terms of the employee’s values being in congruence with

the company’s values. This was also in line with the research of Brammer (2015) where

contested that a company’s CSR engagements would affect the employees in a positive way. In

real terms it was found that direct involvement and clear communication of the CSR

engagements were what made the employee more committed.

5.4 Summary Our overall aim was to observe how employees reacted to their companies CSR engagements

on a local basis and if this was affected by communication or the quality of reports. We found

the reports had little to no impact on the staff but we did find that contrary to Bhattacharya et

al. (2008) in CSR a company did possibly hold the key to a one size fits all answer to improving

49

employee commitment via the intangible aspects. All interviewees connected in some way to

some aspect of their respective companies CSR and in reality they were for the most part poorly

informed of the sheer scale of their respective companies CSR engagements. So we contest if

companies were clearer in informing their employees they would have enough intangible

incentives already included in their CSR engagements to ensure employee commitment

As much as the researcher’s recommendations may seem like common knowledge or obvious

the reality is we found enough shortcomings to be able to recommend the following, it is

essential if a company is to enact in any form of CSR policy it is essential all employees are

clearly informed. It is recommended that active involvement leads to positive perception and

in turn employees who are more likely to be affectively committed to the company. These

intangible aspects count and in 2016 in Sweden it is clear employees coming from modern

university courses expect their employees to be a responsible corporate citizen and also expect

to be to enter working environments that encourage them to develop as individuals and

professionally.

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6. Conclusion

In the conclusion, the last discussions about what have been discovered during the research

are held and conclusions are drawn from them.

The aim of this thesis was in effect in two parts, one was to determine the quality of the CSR

reports and the other to see if the said quality impacted on affective employee commitment to

the organization. To accomplish what was intended, a content analysis on CSR reports and

interviews with employees were made. In the process, findings showed that the CSR reports

were aimed at the public and not employees in the cases of companies producing CSR reports.

The staff were poorly informed of the content of said CSR reports and one company we assessed

were not even producing a CSR report of any format and had reduced their CSR information to

a single page policy. It can be duly noted all staff at this company who partook in the interviews

had signed this policy and were aware of this. It can be noted the concept of CSR was not clear

for some of our interviewees but this can still be attributed to language. It was noted though

that all interviewees were actually aware of CSR-related work at the companies, they just did

not know that it was related to CSR and more so in the cases of their direct involvement.

Employees are seen as a large part of a company’s assets and are the most important factor in

delivering any strategic CSR. The absence of knowledge regarding CSR as a topic is therefore

seen as the main reason for companies to directly educate their employees regarding their work

on CSR. This is based on direct involvement leading to a better understanding and more

committed employees (Raub & Blunschi, 2014; Grant, 2008; ter Hoeven & VerHoeven, 2013).

It can also be seen as a potential way to attract and retain staff by means of clearly

communicating the CSR engagements of the company. Your staff will also provide a viable

word of mouth marketing as our research showed that committed staff we spoke to will and do

promote the company.

To summarize, there are many attractive intangible elements within the CSR engagements of

the companies we researched. It is essential to communicate these to the staff directly and not

simply hope they will pick up on the materials publicly available. Clearly communicating the

CSR engagements of the employees of a company has many benefits, both in terms of content

and committed staff and also as a potential way to attract talent and should be a vital part of any

CSR strategy.

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Appendix 1

Mandatory information

It began in 1973 when accounting standards started to be published and got the name

International Accounting Standards (IAS) which were published by the International

Accounting Standards Committee (IASC) and the publication lasted until 2001. In 2001, the

IASC was replaced by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) and together with

that the regulations changed from IAS to International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS),

which are published by IASB. As IASB was established, it was also agreed that all existing IAS

standards should be adopted into the new system but would henceforth be known as IFRS. The

standards were the same, but with another name.

Since January 1st 2005, are all listed EU companies required to follow the IFRS rules in the

preparation of annual reports. The annual reports are by IFRS paragraph 10 required to include;

income statement, balance sheet, statement of changes in equity, cash flow analysis,

comparison of previous years' accounts and notes explaining the above-mentioned parts, which

is in line with IAS 1 Presentation of Financial Statements. For consolidated reports applies IAS

27 Consolidated and separate financial statements. (FAR, 2016)

In addition to the international standards are also national laws about what is required

specifically for Swedish companies for example. The annual report shall be in accordance with

Årsredovisningslagen (ÅRL), Chapter 2 1§, and contain the balance sheet, income statement,

notes and management report. For companies listed on the Large Cap, a financial analysis is

also included. According to Bokföringslagen (BFL) chapter 6 2§, shall limited companies

establish and publish their annual accounts in accordance with ÅRL, where it should be

prepared according to “god redovinsningssed” on a generally accepted manner. The annual

report shall according to ÅRL chapter 2, 3§ also show a true and fair view of the business, the

company's financial position and results is given and additional information should to be

provided if necessary. If any deviations are made from the recommendations and standard

setters should that information be published in the notes. The management report should

according to ÅRL Chapter 6 1§ contain a fair review of the development of the company's

operations, financial position and results. To simplify the assessment of the company's results

and financial position should the administration report also consist of information explaining

the content of the regulated parts.

58

Al information beyond what has been described above is considered voluntary information and

thus are there no rules on how that information should be reported. Content, appearance and

structure can vary a lot between companies.

(http://www.differencebetween.net/business/difference-between-ias-and-ifrs/).

Appendix 2

Global Reporting Initiative (GRI)

GRI are guidelines for reporting transparent reports, both of which contain positive and negative

aspects of a company's sustainability efforts to provide a "true and fair view" of the company's

work for a sustainable world (källa). The guidelines are generally accepted and represents

current “best practice”. The first version of the GRI guidelines was released in 2000, the second

version in 2002 and the third version was released in 2006 (Deegan & Unerman, 2011).

Reporting in accordance with the guidelines enables consistent, comparable disclosure on risks,

opportunities and sustainability performance (Deegan & Unerman, 2011). Even though the

guidelines exist, they are still not mandatory to follow which allows organizations to be

selective in their disclosure. Although, the GRI guidelines are argued to have brought

improvements to sustainability reporting (Deegan & Unerman, 2011).

Sustainability performance are organized under three categories; economic performance,

environmental performance and social performance. Organizations are required to report a

‘Disclosure on Management Approach’ under each category which include policies,

responsibilities, goals etc.

59

Appendix 3

Scoring information

The following is our scoring categories based on GRI, please note we include some guideline

aspects as categories. We did this as some of our chosen case companies were not reporting

to GRI and we would need to use the categories in a different way. So for our full scoring we

opted for 8 categories and sub categories or themes which gives us a total of 29 themes and

allotting for a maximum score of 87 points based on our scoring scale of 0-3

0 - No meaningful information is provided on the specific criterion.

1 - Patchy or at best anecdotal information is provided.

2 - The reporting provides good information on the criterion. But lacking full data

3 - The reporting includes full information to the criterion, which includes statistics and

follow up.

Category A – Report Content GRI guidelines adaptation for Our scoring

A1 - Materiality Information within the reports should cover Economic,

Environmental, Stakeholder and societal impacts. A2 – Stakeholder Inclusion The report should identify its stakeholders and explain the

relevance of the reporting to them A3 – Report Context The reports should describe the organization performance in

the wider context of sustainability A4 - Completeness The reports and information available should be complete in its

coverage of economic, environmental, societal, voluntary and stakeholder relevance-

Category B – Company profile B1 – Strategy & Analysis CEO involvement, key strategies outlines, short medium and

long term plans relevant to sustainability B2 - Governance Clear indication of the governance and structures within the

organisation B3 – External Commitments Rated as external reporting such as ISO, Global compact or

other bodies. B4 – Stakeholder engagement Rated against the frequency of engagement and type and direct

references to stakeholder groups and the materials relevance to stakeholder groups as listed in GRI

Category C - Economic C1 – Direct economic impact Scored according to direct investments in the information

available, strategic initiatives that are at a cost, projects relative to CSR that would come at an expense

60

C2 – indirect economic impact Projects or initiatives that on the face of it are for public good and will yield no direct economic return

Category D - Environment D1 - Materials Scoring based on use of materials be it in manufacturing or in

office but where the organisation is directly responsible D2 - Energy Scoring based on companies own energy use be it in

manufacturing or in office but where the organisation is directly responsible

D3 - Transport Scoring based on companies own transport needs, be it in manufacturing or in office but where the organisation is directly responsible

D4 – Products & Service Scoring based on both companies and suppliers products, this was adjudged the fairest way for non-manufacturers to achieve a reasonable score

Category E – Labour Practices E1 – Labour Relations Collective agreement, minimum notice, befits provided to

employees. Wages in line with governmental standards E2 – Health & Safety Rate of injuries, health & safety training on the job, Accidents

monitored and prevented E3 - Training & Education Rated against employee career plans, development and other

relevant training E4 - Diversity Encompassing male female equality but also inclusive of race,

creed and other discriminatory factors E5 – Equal Pay Equal pay declarations for men and women within the company Category F – Human Rights F1 – Investment & procurement In terms of their suppliers or investments and the clauses and

works the company enacts in order to improve human rights F2 - Discrimination Rated on practices, processes and polices by company in terms

of tackling discrimination F3 – Free Association & Collective Bargaining

Rated relative to how these issues are handled in manufacturing bases, suppliers and investment companies not bound by Swedish laws

F4 - Assessment Rated against assessments of suppliers and customers in relation to human rights – offshore where applicable

F5 – External Labour How the workers’ rights and remunerations, training and sfety is recorded and monitored overall in customers, investments and suppliers

Category G - Society G1 – Local Community Rated versus the scale at which the company is active within

the local community, voluntarily and philanthropically G2 - Corruption Processes and practices in place to combat corruption within

the organisation and externally G3 - Compliance Adherence to compliance issues and any notable issues G4 – public policy Rated for not lobbying against public interest and involved in

public interest matters

61

Category H - Product H1 - Suppliers This is rated against screening of products manufactured or

supplied, from a labour, environmental, social and economic impact

62

Appendix 4

Content Analysis IKEA:

Info received

Hard copy - Documents - website & online Sources

Category A – report content

A1 – Materiality – All topics covered including sustainability report, sections on the website

and in the annual report– 3 point from possible 3 allocated

63

A2 – Stakeholder inclusiveness – All stakeholders included and reported on, inclusive of

initiatives- 3 point from possible 3 allocated

A3 – Report Context – Sustainability report of over 90 pages, section on website, annual report

- 3 points from possible 3 allocated

A4 – Completeness –In depth reporting clear concise easy to locate, all areas covered within

the contents and reporting of GRI, initiatives and ISO- 3 point from possible 3 allocated

Category B – Company Profile

B1 – Strategy & Analysis – it’s a key strategy and relevant products and processes are in or

being put in place, most company rhetoric relates to sustainability - 3 point from possible 3

allocated

B2 – Governance – Private company but declares all governance structures and procedures - 3

points from possible 3 allocated

B3 – Commitment – clear references projects, relating to suppliers, charities, societal and even

impacting upon states. - 3 points from possible 3 allocated

B4 – Engagement – Stakeholders are engaged in the reporting process including, follow up and

surveys clearly and easily followed and reported per stakeholder. - 3 points from possible 3

allocated

Category C – Economic

C1 – Economic Performance – investment in improvements at costs, the sheer scale of reporting

and potential exposure from their declarations is a clear economic commitment & risk- 3 point

from possible 3 allocated

C2 – Indirect Economic Impact – Investment in improvements of supplier conditions and even

investment in state related commitments (retraining Indian ladies to maximise their earning

potential) - 3 point from possible 3 allocated

Category D – Environment

64

D1 – Materials - major commitments to 100% sustainable materials in all their products this is

reported and follow up measures including furture plans - 3 point from possible 3 allocated

D2 – Energy – Data presented and clear and easily accessible, including recent usage figures

followed by future plans this also includes supply chain monitoring- 3 point from possible 3

allocated

D3 – Transport – Data for travel internally presented in clear and concise manner and easily

monitored, also intentions for future mapped out again inclusinve of suppliers - 3points from 3

allocated

D4 – Products & Services – Full reporting and follow up including GRI- 3 point from possible

3 allocated

Category E – Labour Practices

E1 – Labour relations – No restrictions evident complies with Swedish laws and all labour laws

in every country of operation - 3 points from possible 3 allocated

E2 – Health & Safety – Health & safety data clear and concise - 3 points from possible 3

allocated

E3 - Training & Education – Employees are given clear and concise career paths including in-

depth on job training, IKEA have set goals to raise the number of staff on career plans. - 3

point from possible 3 allocated

E4 – Diversity – Data available and reported, even demanded similar inclusionary strategies in

suppliers - 3 point from possible 3 allocated

E5 – Equal Pay – referred to in a bonus scheme but nothing specific - 2 point from possible 3

allocated

Category F – Human Rights

F1 – Investment procurement – Thorough controlling their supply chain they set demands

monitor and constantly assess these things- 3 point from possible 3 allocated

65

F2 – Discrimination – policies and statistics and reporting to prevent any discriminatory

practices both internally and externally- 3 point from possible 3 allocated

F3 – Free Association & Collective Bargaining –encouraging collective bargaining and

organisation within their supplier network plus matching or exceeding country of operations

standards all reported and monitored- 3 point from possible 3 allocated

F4 – Assessment – reported monitored and standards set for all suppliers- 3 point from possible

3 allocated

F5 – External labour –Standards set for suppliers that exceed state standards via IWAY - 3 point

from possible 3 allocated

Category G – Society

G1 -local community – Local projects in all countries of operation including detailed reports of

specific projects examples all to be found easily in a specific section of the report - 3 point

from possible 3 allocated

G2 – Corruption – setting standards with suppliers and states beyond requirements - 3 points

form 3 allocated

G3 – Compliance – Compliance a major aspect they are compliant in all areas and report

accordingly - 3 point from possible 3 allocated

G4 – Public Policy – reported and monitored and attempts to improve situations in

manufacturing countries - 3 point from possible 3 allocated

Category H – Product

H1 – Supplier – every supplier assessed monitored and kept to standards– 3 point from possible

3 allocated

66

Appendix 5

Content Analysis NORDEA:

Info received

Hard copy - Documents - website & online Sources

Category A – report content

A1 – Materiality – NORDEA cover all areas, Separate sustainability report, extensive CSR area

online plus extra reports and strong mentions in annual report, we also received a hard copy of

the report in the mail – 3 point from possible 3 allocated

67

A2 – Stakeholder inclusiveness – All stakeholders are referred to but only certain reported on

and monitored. This includes report and website– 3 point from possible 3 allocated

A3 – Report Context – Full and concise reporting system both website and separate specific

sustainability report- 3 points from possible 3 allocated

A4 – Completeness –In depth reporting clear concise easy to locate, every aspect of both

Carrolls pyramid and tripe bottom line are addressed within the contents and ven the scale of

GRI, ISO and Global compact commitments not withstanding compliance issues - 3 point from

possible 3 allocated

Category B – Company Profile

B1 – Strategy & Analysis – Again there is a clear strategic goals, inclusive of a csr department

assigned to deliver on projects and goals, plus inclusiveness of CEO and its relevance to overall

shareholder - 3 point from possible 3 allocated

B2 – Governance – As a Swedish stock market registered company they are declaring their full

governance and leadership structure this is coupled with an in-depth CSR governance and

responsibility structure - 3 points from possible 3 allocated

B3 – Commitment – Clear evidence and data of external projects, plus other external

commitment like GRI, Global compact, ISO and external commitments of star fund- 3 points

from possible 3 allocated

B4 – Engagement – We see clear evidence of most stakeholders but all reporting and data seems

geared towards external stakeholders which means we deduct one point- 2 points from possible

3 allocated

Category C – Economic

C1 – Economic Performance – Clearly invested in sustainability with traceable and data relative

to commitments. On top of this their current star funds are risk laden and demand heavy

investment form Nordea in order to bring them to code - 3 point from possible 3 allocated

C2 – Indirect Economic Impact – ekonomipejl project I Sweden but no other defined projects

that suggest public good without reward investments- 2 point from possible 3 allocated

68

Category D – Environment

D1 – Materials - Clear and accessible data on materials used also clear goals for future - 3 point

from possible 3 allocated

D2 – Energy – Data presented and clear and easily accessible, including recent usage figures

followed by future plans- 3 point from possible 3 allocated

D3 – Transport – Data for travel internally presented in clear and concise manner and easily

monitored, also intentions for future mapped out- 3points from 3 allocated

D4 – Products & Services - Nothing beyond some minor product references and certainly

nothing concrete relative to customer or investment products- 1 point from possible 3 allocated

Category E – Labour Practices

E1 – Labour relations – No restrictions evident complies with Swedish laws - 3 points from

possible 3 allocated

E2 – Health & Safety – Health & safety data clear and concise and also implement in investment

companies- 3 points from possible 3 allocated

E3 - Training & Education – High percentage of employees on career plans, training days

monitored and followed up, code of conduct connected to global compact - 3 point from

possible 3 allocated

E4 – Diversity – Statistics that show women outnumber men in general at the company, they

are clear they want equality and are striving for more female representation on board level - 3

point from possible 3 allocated

E5 – Equal Pay – Anecdotal but no commitments or clear data - 1 point from possible 3

allocated

Category F – Human Rights

F1 – Investment procurement – Clear policies, clear data, clear strategy and even specific funs

(star funds) - 3 point from possible 3 allocated

69

F2 – Discrimination – Clear gender policies, but beyond this we see no data pertaining to

religious or race related issues - 1 point from possible 3 allocated

F3 – Free Association & Collective Bargaining –No restrictions and even use Shift as

consultants on new ventures in their star funds - 3 point from possible 3 allocated

F4 – Assessment – All investments are inspected and assessed and are expected to meet

Nordea’s standards - 3 point from possible 3 allocated

F5 – External labour – Mainly anecdotal there are inferences based on star funds efforts but no

concrete data - 1 point from possible 3 allocated

Category G – Society

G1 -local community – Ekonomipejl here in Sweden, we see definite policies with investments

but nothing beyond anecdotal in terms of public good projects - 2 point from possible 3

allocated

G2 – Corruption – Assessments, clear data and even staff training programmes on the issue - 3

points form 3 allocated

G3 – Compliance – Compliance biggest talking point in the bank reports - 3 point from possible

3 allocated

G4 – Public Policy – No active lobbying but no overly clear data reporting - 2 point from

possible 3 allocated

Category H – Product

H1 – Supplier – 100% of all suppliers screened in 2015, regular surveys and data available - 3

point from possible 3 allocated

70

Appendix 6

Content Analysis EY:

Info received

Hard copy - Documents - website & online Sources

71

Category A – report content

A1 – Materiality – All topics covered including sustainability report, sections on the website

and in the annual report– 3 point from possible 3 allocated

A2 – Stakeholder inclusiveness – All stakeholders are referred to but only certain reported on

and monitored. This includes report and website– 3 point from possible 3 allocated

A3 – Report Context – Sustainability report, section on website, annual report and also a library

section including other documents plus document pertaining to global operations - 3 points

from possible 3 allocated

A4 – Completeness –In depth reporting clear concise easy to locate, all areas covered within

the contents and reporting of GRI and ISO- 3 point from possible 3 allocated

Category B – Company Profile

B1 – Strategy & Analysis – CEO clear statement declaring numbers and plans that make it

accountable and strategic plan named as "vision 20 20"- 3 point from possible 3 allocated

B2 – Governance – As a Swedish stock market registered company they are declaring their full

governance and leadership structure - 3 points from possible 3 allocated

B3 – Commitment – external projects, some charity work, global compact and iso (but only

Stockholm)- 2 points from possible 3 allocated

B4 – Engagement – Stakeholders are engaged in the reporting process including, follow up and

surveys clearly and easily followed and reported per stakeholder except suppliers- 2 points from

possible 3 allocated

Category C – Economic

C1 – Economic Performance – they are invested in certain aspects like preparing and reporting

but nothing clear in terms of financial performance investment- 1 point from possible 3

allocated

72

C2 – Indirect Economic Impact – They divulge that willingly let staff take on voluntary work

there is minor references to projects however no clear data or economic information- 1 point

from possible 3 allocated

Category D – Environment

D1 – Materials - Clear and accessible data on materials but no strategy or future plans - 2 point

from possible 3 allocated

D2 – Energy – Data presented and clear and easily accessible, including recent usage figures

followed by future plans- 3 point from possible 3 allocated

D3 – Transport – Data for travel internally presented in clear and concise manner and easily

monitored, also intentions for future mapped out- 3points from 3 allocated

D4 – Products & Services - Their own minor impact declared however no reference to how

they deal with suppliers or customers plus key certificate only for Stockholm- 1 point from

possible 3 allocated

Category E – Labour Practices

E1 – Labour relations – No restrictions evident complies with Swedish laws - 3 points from

possible 3 allocated

E2 – Health & Safety – Health & safety data clear and concise - 3 points from possible 3

allocated

E3 - Training & Education – Employees are given clear and concise career paths including in-

depth on job training. - 3 point from possible 3 allocated

E4 – Diversity – Statistics available showing the ratios plus clear goals and strategies in the

area - 3 point from possible 3 allocated

E5 – Equal Pay – Anecdotal but no commitments or clear data - 1 point from possible 3

allocated

Category F – Human Rights

73

F1 – Investment procurement – Some references but no concrete data or plans - 1 point from

possible 3 allocated

F2 – Discrimination – Clear gender, race and creed polices with follow up and data- 3 point

from possible 3 allocated

F3 – Free Association & Collective Bargaining –Part of their governance in their countries of

operation- 3 point from possible 3 allocated

F4 – Assessment – references but no clear data available on clients or suppliers relative to

standards- 1 point from possible 3 allocated

F5 – External labour –They reference their opposition to poor labour practices but no clear data

available- 1 point from possible 3 allocated

Category G – Society

G1 -local community – Some local projects reported but no clear commitments going forward

- 2 point from possible 3 allocated

G2 – Corruption – There are clear and easily accessible policies and also processes and training

for staff are mapped out, any issues are reported and data available - 3 points form 3 allocated

G3 – Compliance – Compliance a major part of their work mainly legal - 3 point from possible

3 allocated

G4 – Public Policy – No active lobbying and fully compliant - 2 point from possible 3 allocated

Category H – Product

H1 – Supplier – Anecdotal references on what they expect form clients no clear data or follow

up policies available – 1 point from possible 3 allocated

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Appendix 7

Content Analysis SWECO:

Info received

Hard copy - Documents - website & online Sources

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Section A – report content

A1 – Materiality – Sweco got 1 point form 3 in this section determined by a lack of any real

information or firm data beyond anecdotal – 1 point from possible 3 allocated

A2 – Stakeholder inclusiveness – no great reference or specified data beyond anecdotal, the

only clearly defined group in terms of action is the employees – 1 point from possible 3

allocated

A3 – Report Context – A complete lack of a CSR report determines a low score here, this

coupled with patchy information, no clear data and no project relevance - 1 point from possible

3 allocated

A4 – Completeness – There are some relevant documents but again no direct

Sustainability/CSR report, we found no great depth within the annual reports and the website

was also weak on information - 1 point from possible 3 allocated

Section B – Company Profile

B1 – Strategy & Analysis – We found some references but again there was a lack of any

concrete data either via direct projects of financial information - 1 point from possible 3

allocated

B2 – Governance – As a Swedish stock market registered company they are declaring their full

governance and leadership structure - 3 points from possible 3 allocated

B3 – Commitment – there is evidence of external commitments including global compact and

ISO certifications but and some minor projects but nothing overly extensive- 2 points from

possible 3 allocated

B4 – Engagement – there are very specific mentions of stakeholder groups with some specific

reports and documents designed for the attention of , Customers, Suppliers and workers,

missing depth of information and reporting- 2 points from possible 3 allocated

Section C – Economic

C1 – Economic Performance – No clear sign of investments of performance indicators some

minor references - 1 point from possible 3 allocated

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C2 – Indirect Economic Impact – Some mentions of societal work but no clear investments or

economic exposure - 1 point from possible 3 allocated

Section D – Environment

D1 – Materials - This posed a problem as there is mass references to their role in society and

so on but no clear data or guidelines beyond minor documents - 1 point from possible 3 allocated

D2 – Energy – Again lots of anecdotal references available and some minor referencing but no

clear data available - 1 point from possible 3 allocated

D3 – Transport – Nothing beyond anecdotal, no clear datat relevant to internal travel or impact

- 1 point from possible 3 allocated

D4 – Products & Services - Nothing beyond anecdotal, no clear datat relevant to internal travel

or impact - 1 point from possible 3 allocated

Section E – Labour Practices

E1 – Labour relations – Clear collective agreements and open employment policies and all done

via head office meaning they are using Swedish laws and terms - 3 points from possible 3

allocated

E2 – Health & Safety – References to health & safety and there is a clear code of conduct

document but no clear data - 2 points from possible 3 allocated

E3 - Training & Education – There are references to training and development but no clear

policies and certainly no data available - 1 point from possible 3 allocated

E4 – Diversity – No data available - 0 point from possible 3 allocated

E5 – Equal Pay – No data available - 0 point from possible 3 allocated

Section F – Human Rights

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F1 – Investment procurement – There are polices in place for suppliers and customers and these

documents are accessible but no clear data or reporting evident - 2 point from possible 3

allocated

F2 – Discrimination – There is a clear code of conduct but beyond this we found no data or

reporting - 1 point from possible 3 allocated

F3 – Free Association & Collective Bargaining – inferred but not defined relative to suppliers

and or customers - 1 point from possible 3 allocated

F4 – Assessment – it goes beyond anecdotal as there are policies in place but still no concrete

data or follow ups available - 2 point from possible 3 allocated

F5 – External labour – Again beyond anecdotal as there are policies in place but no concrete

data 2 point from possible 3 allocated

Section G – Society

G1 -local community – Some references but no concrete dat and or relevant projects to justify

anything beyond allocated score - 1 point from possible 3 allocated

G2 – Corruption – policies in place no detailed data some evidence of reporting - 2 point from

possible 3 allocated

G3 – Compliance – Policies in place not detailed data - 2 point from possible 3 allocated

G4 – Public Policy – We adjudged this to be at anecdotal level, no data, no reporting - 1 point

from possible 3 allocated

Section H – Product

H1 – Supplier – Some policy reference in terms of supplier and customer control and

assessment - 1 point from possible 3 allocated

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Appendix 8

Interviews

These are the questions we used as guideline during our interviews. Note that the interviews

are of semi-structured nature, the questions are not the same in all interviews.

What is your role?

How long have you been here?

Do you have a University degree?

Within that education, did you have any CSR/sustainability related courses?

Do you have a general understanding of CSR?

Communication

What is your understanding of your company’s CSR?

What aspects of your company’s CSR engagements are you most aware of?

Have you had any training/education on CSR issues here on XXX? If yes, on what level and

what form did they take?

Are you directly involved in any CSR reporting?

Do you feel that your company communicates its CSR-engagement to you?

Perception

What is your perception of your company’s CSR engagements?

Do you feel your company is a good corporate citizen?

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Does your company deliver and match your expectations in terms of CSR?

In the context of the CSR capabilities of your company are you proud to work here and

do you find you speak in a positive light about you company?

Commitment

How important to you is CSR engagement to you in terms of your commitment?

Do/would your company’s CSR engagements influence your future plans in terms of

remaining here to develop your career and your commitment to the organisation?

Consider the possibility your company was to degrade its current levels of engagements

Do you feel your values and your company’s values match? And why?

Would you recommend your company as an employer to friends or potential talent

based on their CSR-commitment?

Would you consider yourself to be committed to EY and why?

Do you think having a specific employee directed CSR report helps you in understanding your

company’s CSR engagements?

What do you think is the biggest challenge for EY in terms of CSR for the future?

Newer starts – did your perception of your companies CSR influence your decision to

join?