Ett hållbart Sverige
en studie om företagsegenskaper som påverkar hållbarhetsredovisningar
The purpose of this study are to investigate and describe if companies? sustainability reports differ in substance and quantity between public and Large Cap companies? and if there are any differences between industries. This study will also analyze if companies? size, stakeholder group or profitability have some impact on the companies? sustainability report. The study includes all Swedish public companies and the Large Cap companies.To investigate in line of the purpose this study will measure both the substance and quantity. The substance in sustainability reports are based on the social, economic and environmental core indicators from GRI?s guidelines and the quantity is based on the number of pages. A mean value is presented based on the core indicators. Furthermore, five hypotheses are presented and are based on the stakeholder theory, the legitimacy theory and the institutional theory with the purpose to explain the differences in substance and quantity.The study?s result indicates that the companies? size correlates with both substance and quantity. The stakeholder group correlates with substance and quantity of sustainability report. The companies? sustainability does show a weak correlation to both substance and quantity information. The purpose of the study is also to look at differences in different industries. The results indicate that differences exist in the different industries. Furthermore, this study investigates differences between public companies and Large Cap companies on Stockholm stock exchanges. The result here indicates differences of substance and quantity information between the public companies and the Large Cap companies.The first three hypotheses tested correlation between the different factors; companies? size, profitability and stakeholder group and these hypotheses are accepted. The other two hypotheses tested differences between differences industries and differences between public companies and Large Cap companies and these hypotheses are accepted. Regardless of which factors that affects companies? sustainability reports one can argue that the main motive of the companies is to gain legitimacy or because their stakeholders request it.