A Comparative Analysis of Firms’ Corporate Social Responsibility in Norway
Master thesis
Permanent lenke
https://hdl.handle.net/11250/2774731Utgivelsesdato
2021Metadata
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- Studentoppgaver (Business) [1059]
Sammendrag
Abstract
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been known throughout history, but has not untilrecently been given a more important role in the companies' day-to-day operations. Measuringcompanies' degree of corporate social responsibility through various CSR activities is achallenge, and to what extent this will have an impact on sustainable development. This hasopened up the possibility of using environmental, social and governance (ESG) ratings as aunit of measurement of the effect of corporate social responsibility. This thesis examines howthe ESG scores contribute to giving an indication of what level Norwegian industries are inrelation to their corporate social responsibility. This is supplemented by examining thedevelopment of CSR, gaining a broader understanding of the definitions of CSR and what valuethis adds to society, shareholders and stakeholders in connection to the ESG score. In addition,a review was made of the various variables in the ESG score to gain a better understanding ofwhich elements in companies influence the score. A comparative analysis was performed ofdescriptive statistics, evolution over time, correlation and t-test of ESG scores in 11 differentindustries in Norway. Conducting these analyses, makes it possible to establish a better overallunderstanding of which elements can affect companies' corporate social responsibility and whatdifferences and similarities these present. Based on the analysis, a comparison of CSR inNorway reveals significant variances and similarities. The testing for significant differencereveals that the majority of the industries within the environmental and social pillars arestatistically significantly different, while the majority of the industries within the governancepillar score indicate equal means. Furthermore, there have been no obvious patterns in termsof differences and similarities, either within or between industries.