Hållbarhetsredovisning
: hur påverkar styrelsens demografiska karaktärsdrag omfattningen av företagets hållbarhetsredovisning?

Translated title of the thesis: Sustainability Reporting: How does the board demographic characteristics impact the extent of company’s sustainability report?
  • Andreas Herrstedt
  • Erika Svantesson

    Student thesis: Bachelor

    Abstract

    Introduction: Information about non-financial performance is called Sustainability reporting, it’s voluntary to disclose but it’s becoming more important in todays’ society. Prior studies have explored the connection between the boards’ demographic characteristics and listed companies sustainability reporting. Our study explores a different institutional environment, smaller companies and considers the demographic characteristics gender, age, ethnic diversity and board size. Purpose: The purpose of the study is to explain how the boards’ demographic characteristics influence the extent of company’s sustainability report, in non-listed companies on the Swedish market covered by the future legalisation. Method: The study use a deductive approach and existing theories were adapted to deduce hypotheses. Empirical data was collected from Retriever Business and corporate websites. To measure the extent of company’s sustainability report, the frequency of keywords was counted. Results: The result of the study demonstrates that board demographic characteristics, to some extent, influence corporate sustainability reporting. Gender showed a positive association with the extent of sustainability information produced, while a age diverse board showed a negative association. Conclusion and contribution: The conclusion is that the board demographic characteristics, gender and age diversity, showed biggest impact on the amount of sustainability information produced by smaller companies. A bigger gender diversity on the board contributed to a more comprehensive sustainability report. Another conclusion is that boards, who are more homogenous in age, could tend to report more then boards with high age diversity. The study has contributed with empirical evidence of how board demographic characteristics, in smaller companies, influence the amount of sustainability information reported.

    Date of Award2016-Jun-30
    Original languageSwedish
    SupervisorEva Gustavsson (Supervisor) & Sven-Olof Yrjö Collin (Examiner)

    Educational program

    • Degree of Bachelor of Science in Business and Economics

    University credits

    • 15 HE credits

    Swedish Standard Keywords

    • Economics and Business (502)

    Keywords

    • sustainability reporting
    • corporate governance
    • board composition
    • legitimacy theory and csr-reporting

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