Corporate Social Responsibility and the Globalization of Business Systems : The Case of Sweden

Abstract

The globalization movement in recent decades has meant a rapid growth of trade, financial transactions and cross-country ownership of economic assets. In this paper, it is examined how the globalization of national business systems has influenced how Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is framed. This is achieved through text analysis of CEO letters in major corporations in Sweden under a period of transformational change of the Swedish economy. The results show that the discourse about CSR has changed from a national and communitarian view of responsibility (a negotiated view of CSR) towards an international and individualistic view of responsibility (a self-regulating view of CSR). In the end of the paper it is concluded that this development deserves further scholarly attention.