Granskning av hållbarhetsredovisningar - Varför granskar endast ett fåtal icke-statligt ägda företag hållbarhetsredovisningen?

Title: Assurance on sustainability reports – Why there are only a few non-states owned companies that assure their sustain-ability reports? Seminar date: May 30, 2012 Course: Master thesis in business administration, 30 University Credit Points (30 ECTS). Authors: Therese Solem & Pauline Svensson Advisor: Amanda Tan-Sonnerfeldt Five key words: Sustainability reporting, triple bottom line, third-party as-surance, the stakeholder theory, and the legitimacy theory. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to investigate why only a few Swedish non-states owned companies choose to have their sustainability reports assured by a third-party. The inten-tion of the thesis is therefore to examine incentives to why companies assure their sustainability reports, and also why companies do not seek third-party assurance. Methodology: This thesis has primarily a deductive research method. In-formation was gathered through qualitative interviews and prevailing literature. Theoretical perspectives: We have created a theoretical framework based on existing theories. This framework consists of the stakeholder theory, the legitimacy theory, why companies assure, and why companies do not assure their sustainability reports. Empirical foundation: The empirical material consists of eleven interviews involv-ing six companies that do not assure their sustainability re-ports, three companies that assure their sustainability re-ports, as well as two experts in the field. This will help us to investigate incentives to why companies assure their sus-tainability reports, and also why companies do not seek third-party assurance. Conclusions: There are several reasons to why companies do not assure their sustainability reports. The key reason is that the stakeholders do not require an assurance statement. Com-panies have therefore not considered that the benefits out-weigh the costs.