Conference Paper

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Browsing Conference Paper by Author "Grahovar, Marina"

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    Reputation Management in CSR reports - mapping theoretical perspectives
    (2010) Grahovar, Marina; Rimmel, Gunnar
    From a societal point of view environmental accounting can fill the role of information- provider in the struggle for sustainability. On the one hand, CSR reporting is used by companies to account for their social and environmental responsibility. On the other hand, CSR reporting is used by companies to manage their reputation. The purpose of this study is to make a theoretical overview of what theories are used for explaining how companies’ respond to external pressure by using CSR reporting as a mean to manage their reputation. Therefore, a map over theories is developed to illustrate how ideas within theories developed and how theories connect to each other. This overview is used outline essences from different theoretical perspectives used to describe and explain the use of CSR reports as an instrument for responding to external pressure and managing corporate responsibility. This paper is a work in progress starting to map out theoretical perspectives dealing with corporate social disclosure in general and reputation management through corporate social disclosure in particular. How a unified assumption is dealt with through different theoretical approaches is discussed. It is argued that the emphasis of different theories provides different explanations which can be used to drive research in the field from different theoretical approaches.
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    The Role of Corporate social disclosure -Trust, reputation or fashion tool?
    (2010) Grahovar, Marina
    Motivation: Corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure can be used as a device by companies to communicate accountability, by showing their vision for the future and account for past performances. If companies are able to communicate their social and environmental work they can receive advantages attached to a good reputation and build a relationship, based on trust, with the society in which they operate. Therefore it is in the interest of this thesis to examine what role CSR disclosure have or does not have in companies’ communication to their stakeholders. Previous research has stated that quality of CSR disclosure, as it tends to be unaudited, is a possible explanation to users’ lack of interest for it. This study sees companies “attitude” towards CSR disclosure and lack of knowledge as another possible area where companies can improve to enhance users interest in CSR disclosure. Problem statement: Previous researchers have pointed out possible roles CSR disclosure could have, which would benefit both companies and users. For example the report could be a communication device with which companies show accountability and performance to build trust for their company and at the same time provide stakeholders with information these can use to improve their decision- making. The problem with CSR disclosure role seems to be that companies either “misuse” it or does not embrace the possibility to account for their good work. Critics of the CSR disclosure mean that it is used by companies to manage their reputation, and that it is rather reputation management than accountability that drives companies to engage in CSR accounting. Others points the problem of CSR disclosure role to that companies instead of taking advantage of it do not embrace the possibility to account for their good work through CSR disclosure, that is companies engage more in environmental and societal issues than they disclose in their CSR reports. Approach: The starting point for this study is that companies do not seem to embrace the possibility of using CSR disclosure as a communication tool in which they can show accountability and build trust, but instead use it as a marketing tool or just produce disclosure because it is in “fashion”. This thesis examines the role of CSR reports and companies use of the report as a communication tool to respond to external pressure and build trust and/or manage reputation. To examine the role of CSR reports knowledge about how companies use CSR reports for reputation management and/or trust building is acquired through a literature review, covering a number of well established journals’ articles regarding corporate social reporting. The purpose of such literature review and the focus of this paper are to start building an instrument which can be used to analyze companies’ use of CSR reports in order to explore the role of CSR reports.
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    The use of corporate responsibility reports – For managing legitimacy
    (2011) Grahovar, Marina
    Society acknowledge that companies’ operations have an impact on their surrounding, as a result companies are no longer only held responsible for maximizing shareholders’ value but also for their operations’ environmental and social impacts. According to the legitimacy theory social values and corporate operations have to be aligned in order for a company to fulfill the social contract providing it with a “license to operate”. Previous researchers using legitimacy theory found evidence for that companies use disclosure approaches in their corporate social reporting in order to attract external support for its activities and show that its activities are in line with social values. The purpose of this paper is to acquire knowledge about how corporate responsibility reports are used for managing legitimacy and what legitimate effect chosen disclosure approaches have. The aim of the paper is to examine how a company reacts and responds to public concerns about its operation and what effect a company’s response has on public concerns, which could affect its “license to operate”. By establishing an analysis model, based on previous legitimacy research, a case company’s response to public concerns through their corporate responsibility report is studied. The case company, Vattenfall, is a large Swedish state- owned energy company. Vattenfall’s operations are considered to be environmentally sensitive, as its energy portfolio includes both nuclear and coal plants. As such the company experiences a great deal of external pressure to ensuring their surrounding that its operations deserves a “license to operate”. Furthermore, the company’s communication is exposed to a heterogeneous audience, with conflicting perception towards its operations. A study of how Vattenfall’s operations are covered by Swedish press is conducted in order to get some insights of how news may affect disclosure practice and how disclosure strategies may affect news coverage. A longitudinal study of Vattenfall’s communication process to address public concerns is conducted with the aim to illustrate how a company yearly deal with changes in public perceptions by using corporate social reports as one tool to manage legitimacy and with a second aim to examine what effect such management has on public concerns and possible reasons for lack of positive effects. I would like to emphasis that is paper is only a working paper where one issue brought up in Swedish press, the use of nuclear power is discussed.