AbstractsBusiness Management & Administration

Various global initiatives have put pension funds in the center of an attempt to make socially responsible investments mainstream. Since today´s financial regulation of pension funds mainly is concentrated on how pension funds must discipline managers to maximize returns, I question in which degree pension funds are able to take social concerns into their investment strategies. While corporate social responsibility in the Scandinavian countries typically have been about the interests of a broad range of stakeholders affected by the business of the company, changes in the global political economy have put pressure on managers to maximize returns, often in a particularly short time frame. The role of the state in this specific development is especially interesting. Many of my findings imply how certain policies have changed from being in the interest of a broader group of stakeholders towards primarily being about protecting the interest of minority shareholders. This draws attention to the role and importance of political values in relation to the continued development of Scandinavian corporate governance. My findings are supported by seven interviews with respectively pension funds, politicians, Financial Supervisory Authorities and a single researcher who has studied the role of pension funds in socially responsible investment. How a growing shareholder focus is affecting the approach towards corporate social responsibility in Norway and Denmark will thus be the main focus of this paper.