Corporate social responsibility reporting in Finnish forest production companies - An examination of the stakeholders’ perception on corporate social responsibility reporting: an emphasis on legitimacy

Abstract

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become a widely accepted term to describe a process to integrate social, environmental and economic concerns with business operations and as part of business strategy. One of the outputs of the CSR process is CSR reporting. CSR reporting is increasingly understood as a way of seeking legitimacy for operations. The purpose of this study was to examine stakeholders’ perceptions of the reports through a set of variables; thoroughness of the reports, agreement of the message, transparency and trust of the communication and finally their contribution to the dependent variable legitimacy.

A qualitative case study approach portraying two of the biggest Finnish forest production companies formed the basis of this research. A content analysis of the CSR reports of the two companies was done to assess the currents state of CSR reporting. The content analysis was structured around a framework constructed from the theory portraying six themes to guarantee trustful, transparent and robust reporting. The second set of data was collected in order to investigate the stakeholders’ perceptions of the reports in relation to agreement of the message transparency, trust and finally their contribution to legitimacy. Semi structured theme interviews following the same framework as in the content analysis was conducted to nine key stakeholders.

The analysis of the two sets of data concludes CSR reporting to be well established in the case companies and contrary to previous studies stakeholders to be at the heart of CSR reporting. In general stakeholders perceived CSR reporting to be comprehensive, transparent and trustworthy and they granted legitimacy to the corporations, not only because of the reporting but also because of the process involved in it. However some division based on the stakeholder types was evident; NGO’s were the most critical towards the reports. There was scepticism due to overly positive communication and the weakness to address social responsibilities, especially from supplier and value chain perspective. This study is among the first to examine CSR reporting from the stakeholder point of view and coupling this with the theory of organizational legitimacy.