CSR + Hudvård = SANT? : En studie om The Body Shops organisationsidentitet

Sammanfattning: The aim of this study was to research the organizational identity of The Body Shop, how the organisation portrays this identity, and how well they manage to incorporate it in several aspects of the organisation. The research questions were formulated as follows: (1) How does the organisation portray their identity through their website? (2) How do the store employees perceive the identity of the organisation, and in what way do they convey this to their customers? (3) Does the given picture of the organizational identity as seen through the website correspond with the one perceived by the store employees? The theories used to analyze the material were Hatch & Schultz’s VCI model (2003) and Birkigt & Stadler’s model of corporate identity (1986). Firstly, a content analysis was conducted on the company’s Swedish website, in order to gain a perception of the organizational identity conveyed by the company. Secondly, semi-structured interviews were conducted with two store employees in a medium-sized Swedish city. The material used in the study, were transcribed interviews with store employees as well as content from the company’s website. The results showed that the organizational identity of The Body Shop mainly is based on their intense work with CSR through e.g. their Community Trade program and their work against animal testing. The results further showed that the perceived identity as suggested by the website correspond with the identity perceived by the store employees, indicating that The Body Shop has a uniform organizational identity.