| dc.description.abstract | According to a recent survey by McKinsey (2010), over 50 per cent of executives consider
sustainability to be very important to their company. Despite this, companies vary
greatly in their focus on sustainability, and we know relatively little about how the
ownership structure of a business affects its decision to take a more sustainable approach.
In this paper, we analyse the impact of state ownership on companies’ corporate social
performance (CSP), using environmental, social and governance disclosure scores (ESG
score) compiled by Bloomberg. Even after controlling for confounding variables such as
company size and sector, we find that companies partially owned by the state (SOEs)
perform significantly better than non-SOEs when it comes to ESG scores. In addition to
the average effects, we find that ESG scores increase with the size of the share owned by the
state. We also gather qualitative data from semi-structured interviews of six Norwegian
companies. The data suggests that our results can be explained by shareholders’ effect on
companies’ sustainability and governments’ promotion of sustainability through policies
and expectations for companies in their ownership. Moreover, as investors, the state often
has a more long-term perspective than private actors, and thus prioritises sustainable
development of the company over time. | nb_NO |
