Corporate Social ResponsibilityThis thesis intends to exam the strategic use of Corporate Social Responsibility within fifthteen different companies, classified/divided into three various industries. The aim is to compare the three different industries, to look for disparities and similarities in their use of CSR. The disseration looks into both variance and resemblance in the use of Corporate Social Responsibility between the companies within the same branch of trade and between the industries.The industries of intrestThe three industries that the study has focus on is consumer, manufacturing and service related industries. Where the consumer industry is classified as companies with direct sales towards private consumers, the physical citizen. The manufacturing industry is classified as companies that manufacture products but that does´nt sell their products directly to the regular consumer.

Background: Ambiguity and confusion of ideas within the area of social responsibility have led to that companies not really know how to work with these types of questions. One way for companies to deal with their social responsibility is to affiliate to an initiative that exists and through this show their standpoint. One of these is Globalt Ansvar, a Swedish governmental initiative that is based on Global Compact?s principles and the guidelines of OECD. What does it mean for the companies when showing their point of view? Is this a way to gain legitimacy?Purpose: The purpose with the thesis is to judge if organisations? work with Corporate Social Responsibility gains more legitimacy by affiliating to Globalt Ansvar.Research method: A survey made through telephone interviews with representatives from all of the fifteen Swedish companies which today are affiliated to Globalt Ansvar.Conclusions: In order to give the affiliated companies more legitimacy, Globalt Ansvar has to be a legitimate initiative.

The main purpose is to illuminate how a company links certain values to its brand in an effort to achieve a competitive position. We have done this by studying the government owned company Svenska Spel and its entrance on the netpokermarket. With Corporate Social Responsibility as a guidance for the company they wanted to offer Swedish gamblers an alternative to the, often morally dubious, international actors. Our thesis has taken an internal (corporate) as well as an external (consumer) perspective on the result of this strive. Our conclusions are that although Svenska Spel is successfully integrating social responsibility into their netpokerbusiness, they are facing a difficulty in making the consumer fully appreciate it.

Corporate Social Responsibility är ett aktuellt ämne och en strategi som många företag börjar använda sig mer av. Syftet i denna uppsats har varit att titta på tre svenska modebutikskedjor, deras CSR-arbete och CSR:s roll i intrycksstyrningen på företagen och därmed deras anseende.Den centrala teorin i denna studie har varit den om intrycksstyrning skriven av Erving Goffman i hans verkJaget och maskerna(2009). Vi har även använt oss av Archie B. Carrolls teori om CSR-pyramiden.Denna studie är komparativ och tre modeföretag har jämförts i deras intrycksstyrning samt i deras CSR-arbete. Intervjuer har hållits med CSR-ansvariga på respektive företag.

AbstractThe development of Corporate Social Responsibility has been increasing for the last decade.Not only is Corporate Social Responsibility an important thing for big rich companies, todayit includes all different kinds of companies? regardless size, profit or industry. An industrywhich affects the majority of the society is the grocery industry. People have on a daily basissome kind of relationship to the grocery industry, which means that we have high presure onthe companies to not take an over price on the goods, to have a good assortment and that thecompanies take responsibility for the society. With high pressure from different groups of thesociety it is hard for the companies to know how to please all groups at their highest level.In this essay a qualitative examination will be done of how grocery companies mange theproblems of having many stakeholders to please.

This essay recognizes and criticizes a commonly held assumption that Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) functions as a ?savings account of trust? between corporations and consumers. Based on five focus group interviews, the authors discuss how corporations that engage in society can sometimes raise and sometimes destroy the trust of potential consumers. One of our main findings is that CSR seems to raise the expectations among consumers. We then compare this phenomenon with the classical theory of the disconfirmation paradigm.

Syfte: Syftet med denna studie är att analysera hur framgångsrika CSR-användande företag verksamma i Sverige har utformat CSR-arbetet. Utifrån denna information ska ett ramverk skapas innehållande styrverktyg och styrtekniker för att underlätta företags arbete med att styra CSR-insatser.Metod: Studien bygger på fem intervjustudier som är genomförda på fem framgångsrika företag verksamma i Sverige. Den teoretiska referensramen är framtagen genom akademiska tidsskrifter och böcker. Den empiriska datan är insamlad genom semi-strukturerade intervjuer genomförda på plats och genom telefon.Slutsats och rekommendationer: Resultatet av denna studie visar att den främsta anledningen för de undersökta företagen att arbeta med Corporate Social Responsibility bygger på ekonomiska fördelar. Intressentstyrning är den främsta faktorn för att lyckas med arbetet med Corporate Social Responsibility.

Bakgrund: Företag världen över har börjat fokusera mer på ansvarstagande och att arbeta för ett mer hållbart samhälle samtidigt som de inser att det kan skapa lönsamhet. Ansvaret som implementeras i företagsverksamheten kallas för Corporate Social Responsibility och har blivit ett sätt att skapa innovation, värde och konkurrensmedel. Det är inte längre frågan om företag ska arbeta med CSR utan hur. Syfte: Syftet med uppsatsen är att skapa förståelse för hur medarbetares samt kunders image av företaget Holtab AB har påverkats av det genomförda CSR projektet. Vi vill även undersöka hur företagets profilering av CSR projekt kan förbättras. Metod: Uppsatsen är en fallstudie av företaget Holtab AB. Vi har utgått från den kvalitativa metoden då vår empiri består av 15 intervjuer från 23 respondenters uttalanden samt information från CSR utbildning vilket har skapat förutsättningar för en tolkande analys.Slutsatser: Vi har kommit fram till att majoriteten av medarbetarnas image av Holtab inte har påverkats av det genomförda projektarbetet ?El i Jyamrung? samtidigt som några av kundernas image har påverkats av projektet.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is about facing responsibilities towards a company?s employees, customers, stakeholders, suppliers and the environment. As customers and consumers came to seek companies that were dealing with CSR a rapid wave of ?forced? implementations of social responsibility began. Fair Travel Tanzania, which has CSR as the foundation of the company, says that they are transparent about what they do and how they give back to the locals, could it be a problem with this? And how do they actually give back to the locals? Is it possible to measure the impact of CSR activities within the company? And if so, how?.

Recent corporate challenges require effective communication in order to secure a company?s reputation. Companies as a result, need to be committed to a series of corporate social and environmental practices along with their financial commitments to their shareholders and investors. In fact, businesses are required to go above their ordinary operations and involve all potential stakeholders that can be affected by their strategies. Companies also need to communicate social, environmental and economic consequences of their activities along with their CSR commitments to their internal and external stakeholders in order to make a better corporate image and improve their market opportunities.

Assessing the outcome of corporate responsibility is often argued to be complicated due to long-term effects and qualitative aspects. Epstein (2008, p.261) establishes that: ?Though many think that sustainability is too difficult to measure, companies have found that unless the impacts are measured, they are commonly ignored in the resource allocation process?. Corporate responsibility is often referred to as a business case, i.e., that social and environmental concern add value to the business (Heikkurinen, 2010; Porter & van der Linde, 1995). Hence, for corporate responsibility to be a business case a strategy, corporate structure and systems, programmes and actions linked to performance measures need to be in place to assess the outcome; environmental, social as well as financial.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is a concept that is growing increasingly important, with more and more companies acknowledging that they have an obligation to the environment in which they operate. We were interested in inquiring into why companies chose to do so, even though there are no laws that condition them to engage in CSR. One answer to this might be that companies use CSR as a way to distinguish themselves from the competition as well as to gain trust and goodwill from the stakeholders. When it comes to Corporate Social Responsibility, the question is no longer whether or not companies should engage in it, but how they can gain competitive advantage by doing so. This study aims at providing a framework for possible ways of integrating CSR and branding, as well as different strategies for CSR-communication. We also tried to define how, and why, consumers respond to CSR-initiatives.

Corporate responsibility is a popular phenomenon of today. The interest for the subject is extensive and means for implementing corporate responsibility strategies within organizations are demanded. There are studies showing how management control systems can be used in order to implement general strategies into organizations. Still, management control systems designed for the implementation of corporate responsibility strategies, in particular, are not provided by the current academia. The aim of this paper is to contribute to studies within management control systems by studying the management control system specifically designed to implement corporate responsibility strategies.

The number of firms adapting the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility is constantly growing. It is no longer enough only to supply your customers with demanded products and services since todays? customers have an increased awareness and are demanding more transparence when it comes to the manufacturing and responsibility for society.Along with a growing interest in social, ethical and environmental matters, many firms have received critique, consequently forcing them to start taking more responsibility for their activities. The clothing industry was among the first to get critized and therefore early in starting their work with CSR.The purpose of this paper is to investigate how firms in the clothing industry work with CSR today, and also how they choose to communicate this work, both internally and externally. The methodology of the paper is qualitative and aims to deeply investigate four different firms, along with an additional interview with a CSR-consult from one of the leading communication-firms in Sweden.The theoretical foundation includes a frame of reference around CSR and the communication thereof, and also a few relevant theories around CSR and business ethics.After analyzing the empirical material the paper have reached a few conclusions.

The competitive situation for businesses has experienced drastical changes as an effectof globalization and changes in consumer demands. Product related competitive advantages arerisking to quickly become presumptions for competition. The demand for increased innovationpace, along with the intense price competition, has led to buisnesses trying to find new ways todifferentiate themselves and Corporate Social Responsibility has became one way of doing so.The bad working conditions associated with the textile industry have rised a debate about thebusinesses? Corporate Social Responsibility. The future is heading towards more and morecompanies choosing to take their social responsibility, many of those experiencing this to be anadvandage in the relation with the consumers.