Title: CSR and profitability in three dimensions ? practical examples, Economic Value Added and previous researchAuthors: Linda-Marie Emilsson & Martina Classon Subject: Business AdministrationDate: 2011-05-26Mentor: Krister BredmarProblem description: Scientists have for a very long time disagreed about whether or not companies should work with Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and if there is any correlation between CSR and profitability. There are mainly three different views according the correlation: CSR have a neutral impact on financial performance, CSR have a positive impact on profitability and CSR have a negative impact on profitability. One of the reasons behind the disagreement is the complexity measuring CSR. Scientist claims that EVA is a measure that can be used to measure the correlation between CSR and profitability.        Purpose: The intention with our essay is to find out if there is any correlation between CSR and profitability.

It is a common view that companies should focus on building brands to increase profitability and stabilize cash flows. However, building and keeping brands alive is costly. Many firms spend large sums on branding only because they are supposed to, without knowing if they will actually gain from it. Up to date, there is limited convincing evidence that branding actually contributes to shareholder value creation. This thesis aims to investigate the relationship between brand strength and profitability and shareholder value.

In a comparing survey this thesis investigatesclassification systems for dams in Sweden, Norway,Finland, Switzerland, Canada and USA. Theinvestigation is aiming at an understanding of howpotential consequences of a dam failure are takeninto account when classifying dams. Furthermore,the significance of the classification, regarding therequirements on the dam owner and surveillanceauthorities concerning dam safety is considered andreviewed. The thesis is pointing out similarities anddifferences in the line of dam safety.The survey of dam safety is firstly based upon legalrequirements in the different countries andsecondly on guidelines regarding dam safety. Damowners generally are ultimately responsible for thesafety of their dam, and often have their ownroutines regarding how this safety is to be achieved.In this thesis, however, the legal requirements aremainly focused upon.The investigation has resulted in an outlining ofeight areas, where the classification systems in thevarious countries have been compared.

Quality Control is a term often used within production and is referring to managing processes so they produce capable products. Within Quality Control, process capability index is a common measure to oversee processes. Safety Region Plots were introduced to do this graphically. In Albing & Vännman (2010) the concept of Safety Region Plots is expanded to incorporate an elliptical shape. The method of Elliptical Safety Region Plots assumes a normally distributed data.

With a shifting world market and periodically profitability issues, Swedish farmers seekalternative ways to enhance their profitability. One interesting alternative to get a highervalue and enhance products is biodiesel, a way to improve the profitability on a farmscale.The diesel that is produced and sold, already have a mixture of 5% biodiesel, andthere is a possibility to add more biodiesel to it. By developing new engines severalengine-manufacturers now allow a mixture up to 100% biodiesel in their engines. Hencethere is a market for an increased production of biodiesel. The aim of this study were toinvestigate the possibilities and the problems related to farm-scale production ofbiodiesel, and to study the profit margin in the production.

Women ledaers and profitability, is there a correlation? Earlier research show different outcome on the correlation between women leaders and profitability. A Swedish consultant firm, Caran has a belief that more women leaders would create more financial profit, we ask us if that is the true situation. Using two different IC measurement methods we have shown the difficulties in calculate intagible resources, which methods that can/ can not be used and if women leders create financial value. We found the women leaders in Caran to add more value per dollar spent on the woman leaders than the value added per dollar spent on men leaders.

AbstractThe Swedish school is the biggest place of work in the country. Statistics about the Swedish school shows that both students and teachers work in an environment who has elements of violations, threats and violence, and study environments where many students do not feel they have a study environment during class. The purpose with this study has been to investigate if teachers and principals is given the right conditions in their respective educations to pursue their professional profession to achieve the objectives of the goals with the systematic safety and work environment of the school's safety concerns. The study has been designed as an investigation about respective educations syllabus and has been examined by the presence about systematic safety and knowledge about work environment law in respective courses. The examination about respective educations syllabus has been done by a qualitative content analysis.

The aim of this paper is to examine the psychosocial work environment and safety culture in minor Swedish airports. The purpose is also to investigate the relationships between these two. The paper deals with theories regarding psychosocial work environment, organizational culture and safety as well as safety culture and safety climate. The participants are air traffic controllers working in minor airports in Sweden. The psychosocial work environment was measured with Copenhagen psychosocial questionnaire (COPSOQ) and the safety culture with the safety culture assessment questionnaire (SCAQ).

The purpose of the present study has been to investigate the attitudes of personell involved in the preschoolorganisation in a Swedish commune regarding injury risks for children in pre-school. Sixrespondents were interviewed in a qualitative interview study.Two different pre-school units were investigated, and it was found that they had surprisingly largedifferences in how they were working with children safety. However, in summary it can be said that therespondents perceived that child safety should encompass a safe and secure environment, however withthe important caveat that accidents can never be completely excluded, due to the natural anddevelopmentally important play of children.The investigated commune and pre-school units improved children safety mainly by using yearlyplanning meetings (Sw. "barnskyddsrond") where the physical environment in the school wasinvestigated together with external specialists. However, there are important differences in how the unitsworked within this framework, some units actively encouraging and others discouraging children andparent participation in the work..

Women ledaers and profitability, is there a correlation? Earlier research show different outcome on the correlation between women leaders and profitability. A Swedish consultant firm, Caran has a belief that more women leaders would create more financial profit, we ask us if that is the true situation. Using two different IC measurement methods we have shown the difficulties in calculate intagible resources, which methods that can/ can not be used and if women leders create financial value. We found the women leaders in Caran to add more value per dollar spent on the woman leaders than the value added per dollar spent on men leaders.

Active ownership is widely regarded as positive for the development and performance of businesses. In this paper, we investigate the impact of ownership concentration and owner identity on return on equity (ROE) in Swedish companies between 1986 and 2008, and show that active ownership might suffer from opposing effects. We find evidence, albeit weak, that ownership concentration has a positive effect on profitability, but that it levels off at high levels of ownership shares. Furthermore, we propose that family ownership has a negative effect on profitability. Our results are dependent of choice of statistical method, but show nonetheless a need to reevaluate what seems to be a universally positive view of active ownership..

This thesis is commissioned by the Swedish electricity trading company GodEl with the purpose of evaluate solar electricity in multi-family buildings in the Stockholm region. The prices of solar panels have dropped recently due to the advances in technology, but the installation rate in Sweden remains low. It is therefore interesting to study the  profitability of solar electricity today, and if it is profitable enough to install based on profitability alone and not simply due to environmental considerations. Therefore this thesis first studies the profitability of solar panels based on a simulation of electricity production and consumption for multi-family buildings this region. The study concludes that solar electricity can be profitable in the Stockholm region under certain conditions; all of which have to be favourable for profitable solar electricity.The thesis also studies the opinion of the company's costumers concerning solar electricity.

Denna single case studie, med multipel baslinjemätning över beteenden, utvärderade huruvida frekvensen traumarelaterade undvikandebeteenden minskade vid 12 sessioners behandling under 6 veckor med Seeking Safety (en behandlingsmanual med copingstrategier för PTSD och samtidigt missbruk), hos patienter med PTSD som inte bedömts lämpliga/redo att direkt börja traumafokuserad KBT. Därutöver utvärderades huruvida behandling med Seeking Safety, kunde öka villigheten att genomgå traumafokuserad KBT. 4 patienter deltog i studien varav 3 fullföljde behandlingen. Resultaten visade en svag tendens i riktning med hypoteserna, men studiens resultat i sin helhet ger ej stöd för behandlingens effekt hos patientgruppen. Av denna studie går ej att utläsa huruvida behandling med Seeking Safety kan leda till minskning av traumarelaterade undvikande-beteenden..

This thesis investigates the effect of profit growth and profitability on market capitalization amongst Nordic companies during the turbulent period 1997-2005. Our results suggest that profitability have a significant impact on market capitalization for six of the nine years studied, whereas profit growth does not seem to affect market capitalization. Consequently, our results imply that the effect of other factors on share price performance may be greater than previously suggested. These findings are only partly in line with theories on corporate valuation which suggest that market capitalizations are to a great extent driven by both profit growth and capital returns, regardless of whether the stock market is particularly unstable..

This master thesis concerns the occupational safetyenvironment at Outokompu Stainless, Avesta Work.The study is of a sociotechnical approach wherehumans are involved and interconnected in the samesystem with technology and organisation. In order toreach the corporation?s goal of zero accidents with losttime injury, the work of improving and maintainoccupational safety and health has to regard behaviourand cultural aspects. The aim of this study is todescribe the safety culture at a specific production unitand research what work which has to be done in orderto change and improve the safety culture at AvestaWork.There are several opportunities for improvementpointed out in this paper and here are some mainresults presented. First and foremost, the concern ofsafety among blue-collar is often secondary due toproduction.