Corporate Social Responsibility : The Problem of Securing External Legitimacy in a Globalized World

This paper presents the results from a textual analysis of "Letters from the CEOs" in leading Swedish corporations. The sample consists of letters from annual reports for the years of 1981, 1991 and 2001. The purpose of the paper is to discuss how the textual representations of issues related to corporate social responsibility (CSR) have changed over the period. The results show, not surprisingly, a substantial increase on a number of topics that can be linked to the general CSR-discourse in the 2001 sample. But the rise of a CSR-discourse is related to a drop of another discourse related to social responsibility, in which the CEOs used to comment upon the social, economic and political development of their native country. It is therefore doubtful to claim that business leaders of today feel a larger social responsibility than in the past. In the end section of this paper we discuss the consequences of the shift of responsibilities from a narrower national arena towards a globally dispersed community of stakeholders. It is concluded that the CSR discourse, firmly rooted in a self- regulation philosophy, have not yet emerged as an influential movement in Sweden that affects the overall business conduct in a more substantial manner. The CSR-philosophy seems so far to be a more liberating than restraining factor for those Swedish companies who have moved their operations across the national borders.