Social media's role in company transperency : A qualitative study of private firms in northern Sweden

• Main Author: Ohlsson, Terese
• Format: Bachelor Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: Umeå universitet, Företagsekonomi 2022
• Subjects: transperency; social media; CSR; communication; private firms; Business Administration; Företagsekonomi; Northern Sweden
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-201815

The interest in company transparency has increased in the last years. This has been a demand from customers and other stakeholders after witnessing numerus scandals by big companies. Along with this, being transparent has also become a goal for a lot of companies today. Despite this, there are still little research on how companies should work with transparency. There are numerus ways for companies to exercise transparency, one of the being communicating about the company’s CSR (corporate social responsibilities) to share their contribution to a better world. However, there are some difficulties of doing this to make sure that the communication is not misleading and is in line with the reality. However, there are few studies in current research on CSR involving how practitioners are working when communicating CSR and their thoughts about it. Followingly, a company’s CSR efforts can be communicated in various ways. As social media is a major communication channel today it is also a main communication channel for companies CSR work. Which is why this degree project is focusing on CSR communication on social media. The purpose for this degree project is to investigate and explore how private firms in northern Sweden are using social media to exercise transparency by communicating their CSR efforts. The rapid economic growth of northern Sweden has made this an interesting geographical location for this study along with the fact that social media is well implemented in Swedish companies and the Swedish population along with CSR being well imbedded in Swedish companies. A qualitative method was applied along with grounded theory to analyze the findings and connecting them to current literature. The findings show of six approaches of how private firms in northern Sweden are using social media to communicate their CSR efforts, and therefor exercise transparency. These are: (1) Using social media to inform about the company’s actions regarding CSR, (2) Using social media to drive traffic to website to share further ...