Personnel's Perceptions in Three Finnish Companies: Local CSR vs. Global CSR?

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide new aspects to corporate social responsibility (CSR) research, especially in a Finnish context. The aim is to compare personnels perceptions in three case companies (a forest company, a cooperative bank and a retail cooperative): how the contexts and aims of practising CSR are understood? Special focus is in the organizational form: to compare CSR in one exchange‐listed and in two cooperative companies (local vs. global CSR). Design/methodology/approach – In Finnish companies CSR is taken into account quite well. Though, in this paper the personnel's perceptions are studied further by content analysis. The interview data consist of three different levels: the top management, the middle management and the employee level. Findings – Provides information about each company, comparing the personnel's perceptions in different hierarchical levels. The organizational form is also an important factor in CSR, since two of the case companies are cooperative (the bank and the market) and the forest company is an exchange‐listed company. This brings new interesting aspects to the context of CSR. Research limitations/implications – The research context is Finnish, so there might be limitations when applying the results to countries very dissimilar to Finland. Practical implications – A useful source of information about CSR “inside” the companies: getting the personnel perspective. Originality/value – This paper brings more information about CSR seen by the personnel: very often CSR is studied through stakeholders/owners/customers etc., but this paper gives the insider picture about CSR in Finnish companies.