Den Svenska Självgodheten: Hur kan CSR och den sociala dimensionen i Sverige för detaljhandeln förstås, när detaljister gör anspråk på CSR samtidigt som personalvillkoren i branschen försämras

Sammanfattning: The concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has lately gained popularity throughout the globalized world. Swedish retail industry is no exception. Though increased levels of explicitly claimed responsibilities of companies, a number of other facts points out a development that contradicts this trend. Labour conditions and forms of employment is substantially retrograding, with an increased level of insecurity characterizing the Swedish retail labour market. At the same time, almost all Swedish retail companies explicitly state claims on social responsibility. Hence, the aim for this study is to explore the contradicting parallel movements related to the social dimension of CSR in Swedish context. This is particularly interesting due to the strong national heritage of addressing social issues within the institutional context. This brought into light the underlying mechanisms of the construction of CSR, enabling an understanding of the Swedish adoption of the concept. The study explores the approaches to this phenomenon within relevant stakeholder groups consisting of CSR-managers, labour unions and retail employees. A combination of qualitative and quantitative methods is used in order to identify discrepancies that can explain the paradox of the general research problem. Through connecting theories from different academic schools into a new model, we show that the gap can be explained in terms of national context, implicit and explicit use of CSR, legitimacy and stakeholder theory. Our results imply that Swedish retail companies only recognises parts of a shift in the national context, and rely on an institutional base that is no longer valid. Furthermore, they show proof of "Swedish Self-Righteousness" related to the institutional context of the Swedish Model. This strongly contributes to a lacking recognition of the social issues as part of the Swedish conceptualisation of CSR. Due to scarce previous academic research in the area of subject, this study importantly help gain new insights about the unexplored field of specific conditions and areas of issues related to a Swedish conceptualisation of the social dimension of CSR in the retail industry.