Businesses intruding on the welfare state arena : A study of how CSR within education can be seen as legitimate business practice

Sammanfattning: In coordinated market economies, the role distribution is clear: the state provides welfare services and businesses conduct business. In the welfare state of Sweden, however, businesses address social issues and thus transcend their traditional role. How this is perceived as legitimate behavior is curious and understanding how businesses reconcile these actions with the coordinated market logic can inform us of how the modern welfare state evolves. This thesis therefore aims to increase the understanding of how CSR activities that traditionally are viewed as governmental concerns can be perceived as legitimate business practice in a modern welfare state. To achieve this, a qualitative study of how businesses rationalize CSR activities in the regulated area of Swedish education was conducted. To derive meaning from the rationalizations, theory of organizational identity was used. From the study, companies were found to mainly express collectivistic identity orientations towards their activities within education, but individualistic, relational, and hybrid orientations were found as well. Based on these rationalizations, we conclude that to understand how CSR activities that interfere with governmental concerns can be perceived as legitimate from the business perspective, we must assume influence of not only the coordinated but the liberal market logic as well.