Corporate ownership and firm’s ESG performance : A study of Swedish listed firms.

Sammanfattning: Growing public awareness of corporate social responsibility (CSR), particularly corporate involvement in environmental, social, and governmental (ESG) issues, has led to extensive discussions on the factors that may influence corporate ESG performance. Prior literature has pointed out that ownership structure can be a crucial factor regarding a firm’s attitude and engagement in ESG. However, fewer studies have focused on the association between different types of ownership structures and ESG performance for countries with highly concentrated ownership of firms, such as Sweden. Therefore, it seems necessary to gain insight into how different types of ownership affect the ESG performance of firms in the Swedish context. The purpose of this study is to understand how ownership structure, and more specifically, the presence of founding, non-founding, institutional, foreign ownership, as well as the use of dual-class shares and the presence of multiple large shareholders, will affect the ESG performance of Swedish firms. The results show that controlling ownership, dual-class shares, founding-family ownership, and multiple large shareholders have a significant negative effect on a firm's ESG performance.