Purpose -The purpose of this article is to analyse the impact of higher education on students' and young managers' perception of companies and corporate social responsibility (CSR).Design/methodology/approach -The research is based on an electronic questionnaire for students and alumni of different institutions of higher education in Nantes (France). The textual analysis software ALCESTE enabled interpretion of the answers to the open-ended questions. Concerning the closed questions, analyses by simple sort and the cross sort subject to chi2-tests were used.Findings -The main result of this exploratory study is the impact of the different types of academic institutions on the respondents' perception of companies and their attitude towards CSR concepts and tools.Research limitations/implications -The questionnaire should be submitted to a group of older managers and engineers in order to check whether and to what extent the impact of the academic institution is confirmed after several years of experience as managers. Furthermore, this exploratory research should be complemented by a qualitative approach to explain the link between the corporate vision and educational background.Practical implications -Higher educational institutions have to integrate CSR in their culture, as this culture seems to have an impact on the perception of companies and CSR that is as important as the content of the education.Originality/value -This research has been designed by a French business school and the white collar trade union CFDT-Cadres.

■ Many studies in the fields of law, sociology and management point to the transformation of subordination in the employment relationship. This is often explained by the triangulation of the traditionally bilateral employment relation between employer and employees by the involvement of clients or their representatives in the operational and organizational conditions of work. Such studies rarely distinguish between the various types of clients, nor between the reality and rhetoric of their role and influence. Our objective is to propose a classification of the triangular situations between employer, employees and clients based on the concept of power and to analyse the impacts of clients on conditions of work and employment relations.

Labor unions are key stakeholders in the field of corporate social responsibility but researchers have paid surprisingly little attention to their CSR strategies. This article extends stakeholder theory by treating unions as having stakeholders that influence their CSR strategies. Drawing on qualitative data from a longitudinal study on selected unions in France between 2006 and 2013, this paper analyzes the underlying reasons for the differences in their approaches. It finds connections between the unions' CSR strategy, and the perception of and cooperation with stakeholders.

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