Investigating corporate social responsibility disclosure by banks from institutional theory perspective

Previous research on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has mainly focused on the companies operating in different industry fields. Yet, a limited number of research has investigated the CSR practices at the banking sector. Accordingly, this study attempts to add further knowledge to this domain by measuring and comparing the extent and quality of CSR practices and its components which are: Employees, Community, Environment and Corporate governance at a larger geographical scale. Moreover, the relationship between institutional environment and the CSR and its components will be empirically examined. Secondary data provided by CSRHUB database is used for a sample of 231 banks operating in five different regions from 2012 to 2015. The findings reveal that the CSR practices are exercised at a large scale across both developing and developed countries. Interestingly, the developing countries especially those considered as advanced economies or those having well established international business relations with other developed countries seem to have progressing banking system that provides CSR at the highest international levels. Accordingly, no significant difference has been reported between banks in such developing countries and their counterparts in other developed countries. On the contrary, regional settings have shown significant impact on the CSR in total and on each single component. These results provide valuable insights and implications to both practitioners and academia.