Browsing by Author "Grahovar, Marina"

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Hållbarhetsredovisningens innehåll. Vad har en inverkan på hur hållbarhetsredovisningens innehåll upprättas?
(2016-09-20) Grahovar, Marina
Hållbarhetsredovisningens innehåll Vad har en inverkan på hur hållbarhetsredovisningens innehåll upprättas? Sustainability accounting has the potential to help companies drive their sustainability work forward. To reach its potential, understanding of what generates certain content in sustainability reports is needed. Previous studies have started to explore how factors in companies’ external context generate certain content. Although, some insights have been gained from these studies, the results have varied. Therefore, researchers claim that complementing new research approaches, such as studying sustainability accounting from an internal perspective, should be prepared. Access was given to explore a case company’s, CSRAB:s, work to produce its sustainability report. Hence an opportunity arose to contribute to knowledge about the complexity that has an impact on how sustainability reports are generated. A theoretical framework consisting of three parts: persons identified to have an impact, factors acknowledged in agency theory, sociology and institutional theory to have an impact and finally Global reporting initiative (GRI) framework for sustainability accounting, was used to understand what is going on. Empirically the complexity behind generating a sustainability report is described. Theoretically it is acknowledged that it is rather the interplay between different actors and factors, than a certain factor or person on its own, that determines the content of a sustainability report. For instance, its acknowledged that the interplay between different internal and external persons and factors enabled coordinators plans, while absence of persons and factors decreased their knowledge. This loss in knowledge reduced their ability to, for instance, ensure materiality and complete-ness. The knowledge from the CSRAB:s study as well as future studies exploring the interplay between different persons and factors, can be used practically to understand why certain content is included while other is absent. These insights can be used to understand what needs to change in order for sustainability reports to become tools that help to develop companies’ sustainability work. Key words: sustainability accounting, internal and external actors and factors.
En ren revisorsberättelse -En studie om hur påskrivande revisorer hanterar osäkerhet
(2013-06-12) Grahovar, Marina; Jarnevi, Fredrik; University of Gothenburg/Department of Business Administration; Göteborgs universitet/Företagsekonomiska institutionen
Bakgrund och problemdiskussion: Revisorer har en viktig roll som kvalitetsgranskare av ett företags ekonomiska rapporter och syftet är att ge en ökad trovärdighet för den finansiella informationen. De senaste åren har skandaler kring revisorer uppdagats vilka har ifrågasatt revisorers roll. Trots detta har studier visat att revisorer har ett stort förtroende att leva upp till och de ställs inför svåra val och frågeställningar som skapar osäkerhet. Tidigare forskning finns angående olika sätt att minska osäkerheter för revisorer. Där beskrivs exempelvis vikten av att ha ett väl fungerande team samt arbetssätt som kan minska osäkerheter. Den påskrivande revisorn har ett stort ansvar och felaktiga beslut kan leda till ödesdigra konsekvenser. Frågan är hur påskrivande revisorer klarar av att arbeta utifrån dessa förutsättningar och hur denne vänder den osäkra kontext revisorn verkar inom till att utföra ett arbete som kan fastställas med en hög grad av säkerhet. Frågeställning: Hur hanterar påskrivande revisorer osäkerheter i revisionsprocessen? Syfte: Syftet med uppsatsen är att belysa och skapa en förståelse för hur påskrivande revisorer hanterar osäkra situationer som de upplever i revisionsprocessen. Avgränsningar: Uppsatsen ämnar ge en övergripande bild över revisionsprocessen gällande osäkerheter och fokuserar på hur påskrivande revisorer hanterar dessa. Revisorerna har lång erfarenhet av yrket och arbetar inom de största revisionsbyråerna. Metod: Vi har genomfört en beskrivande kvalitativ studie med fem intervjuer med påskrivande revisorer. Intervjumaterialet har bearbetats och jämförts med tidigare studier vilket har mynnat ut i en analys för att kunna besvara vår frågeställning. Slutsats: Studien har visat att många av de osäkerhetsminimerande faktorerna grundar sig i den institutionella kontext revisorerna verkar inom. Genom att de tillhör stora organisationer får de tillgång till de stöd som behövs för att genomföra en revision med så lite osäkerheter som möjligt. Eftersom tidigare studier också fokuserat på de större revisionsbyråerna har resultatet varit tämligen lika. Respondenterna nämner även erfarenheten de har samt möjligheten till att avvakta en påskrift som en stor säkerhet och trygghet. Genom den medvetenhet som finns bland de påskrivande revisorerna samt hanteringen av osäkerheterna finns förhoppningar om att kunna behålla det starka förtroende som finns för revisorer idag. Förslag till vidare forskning: Vi ser en möjlighet att utveckla forskningen kring revisorer och osäkerhet genom att göra en liknande studie med revisorer som är verksamma inom mindre revisionsbyråer. En annan öppning vi ser för vidare forskning är kring Powers ifrågasättande av styrdokument i revisionsprocessen.
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.
The Role of Corporate responsibility Disclosure - For managing external expectation and pressure
(2012) Grahovar, Marina
The role of Corporate Responsibility disclosure – For managing external expectation and pressure
(2012-01) Grahovar, Marina
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.
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.