Corporate Social Responsibility: a win-win situation? 2006 (English)Independent thesis Basic level (degree of Bachelor)Student thesis

Abstract [en]

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has gained a lot of attention the last decade and more and more companies are realizing the importance of this concept. There is not one established definition, but to sum up, CSR is how a company integrates core values and ethics into its business policies, practices and strategies. This thesis sets out to explore CSR, and whether or not a company can gain a competitive advantage through being responsible. A literature review was conducted aimed at collecting relevant information about CSR, from books, articles and internet sources. We did a small case study on Ikea, because they are considered ‘best in class’ when it comes to CSR. Our primary data is collected in a depth interview with social and environmental responsible at Ikea Norway. We have presented several relevant theories on the area, including competitive advantage and sustainability, and tried to create an understanding around the subjects. While we were working with the concept of CSR and other theories, evaluating what other authors have presented on the subject, it became clear to us that CSR can give a company advantages if pursued correctly. There are several issues along the way of becoming responsible that needs to be dealt with before a company can harvest the benefits of CSR. At the next stage, when we interviewed our respondent at Ikea, the advantages became even clearer. Several interesting aspects occurred, that were of great use to us in the analysis. Here, theoretical work is integrated with our primary data. To make it all more understandable, Ikea is used as a real-life example throughout the entire analysis.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages

2006.

Keywords [en]

Competitive advantage, Corporate Social Responsibility, Stakeholders, Sustainability, Ikea.

Identifiers

URN: urn:nbn:se:hh:diva-13657Local ID: U12819OAI: oai:DiVA.org:hh-13657DiVA, id: diva2:368848

Uppsok

Social and Behavioural Science, Law

Note

Denna uppsats kan beställas från arkivet / This paper can be ordered from the archive. Kontakta / Contact: arkivet@hh.seAvailable from: 2010-11-09 Created: 2010-11-09Bibliographically approved

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