trends and future of sustainable development - TransEco

STAKEHOLDERS AND CORPORATE SOCIALRESPONSIBILITY IN CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITYDISCLOSUREMarileena KoskelaUniversity of Turku, Finland Futures Research Centre, FinlandUniversity of Jyväskylä, School of Business and Economics, FinlandABSTRACT – Corporate social responsibility (CSR) consists of the responsibility of economic, socialand environmental issues. Companies collect CSR data from the various parts of the company and useit e.g. to publish different types of reports, magazines and webpages. The results presented here arepart of an on-going project that focuses on the feasibility and utilisation of CSR information in theanticipatory decision making. Three Finnish companies are used as case studies. The material of thisanalysis is the sustainability webpages, CSR reports and the press releases. Content analysis is used tofind out which stakeholders the case companies mention and under which part of the CSR they arementioned. Several different stakeholders are mentioned, most often customers, cooperativecompanies and employees. Top ten stakeholders differ some when comparing the areas of CSR anddisclosure type. In the next phase of the project, the analysis will be widened to annual reports, CSRpolicies and stakeholder magazines. Also, several interviews will be made in order to evaluate theprocess of dissemination of CSR information inside and outside the company.1. Introduction and BackgroundCorporate Social ResponsibilityCorporate social responsibility (CSR) is an important part of the management of companies. However,what is included in the definition varies between companies and business sectors. Usually, CSR consistsof company’s responsibility 1) of its actions, 2) beyond the legislative requirements and 3) towards to itsstakeholders (Vehkaperä 2005). Company’s responsibility of its actions is usually understood asresponsibility of company’s economic, social and environmental impacts (Vehkaperä 2005, Elkington1999, Kujala & Kuvaja 2002, Wilenius 2005, Teollisuuden ja työnantajien keskusliitto 2001). Theeconomic responsibility covers aspects such as responding to the owners’ profit expectations andproducing welfare to the society (Teollisuuden ja työnantajien keskusliitto 2001). As, the environmentalresponsibility is the responsibility of the natural environment (Teollisuuden ja työnantajien keskusliitto2001, Niskala & Tarna 2003). Social responsibility covers the aspects of the social relationships between349