Miljöperspektiv i verksamhetsstyrning : Hur små och medelstora företag arbetar med att integrera hållbarhet i sin verksamhetsstyrning

Sammanfattning: Magister thesis in Business Administration, Degree of Master of Science in Business and Economics Authors: Kaltrina Haxha & Sara Kadhim Supervisor: Kim Eriksson Examiner: Jan Alpenberg Title: Environmental perspective in corporate governance - How small and medium-sized companies work to integrate sustainability into their corporate governance. Background and problem: Sustainability has gained an increasing focus in today's society and thus different working methods have been established to prevent a negative impact on the environment. Today, there are other expectations of a company's operations and therefore it becomes important for companies to consider the environmental issue in their governance. Various management methods have been developed in previous research to enable the integration of sustainability in business management. The previous research highlights that deeper analysis of how the integration of sustainability is to be applied in the governance of small and medium-sized companies, are relatively lacking in the previous research. Purpose: The purpose of the work is to analyze how sustainability is integrated into the business management of small and medium-sized companies. The purpose is also to investigate which management methods are used to implement the integration of sustainability in business management. Method: The study was conducted on 10 small and medium-sized companies that have laid the foundation for the empirical material collection. The study was conducted through a qualitative research method. An abductive research approach has been applied where theory and empiricism have been worked through back and forth. Conclusion: Empirical research shows that small and medium-sized companies can integrate sustainability into their business management through three different approaches. The three approaches identified are: through ISO standards, through a collection of sustainability goals, planning & strategy, measures & follow-up and cultural control, or through the third approach which is a combination of all these mechanisms together. What is highlighted in the study is that when the company integrates sustainability through one or the other method, the integration of sustainability becomes fundamental in business management. Rather, when these two mechanisms are used as a combination, the integration of sustainability becomes greater. Keywords: Sustainability, Integration, Environment, Business Management, SMEs