Corporate Social Responsibility Reporting of Islamic Banks in Bangladesh

Abstract

Purpose: the study is aimed at finding out the CSR disclosure practice of the Islamic banks (IB) in Bangladesh Research Methodology: The study entails a content analysis of 6 full-fledged IBs in Bangladesh for the year 2015, investigating their CSR compliance level as per the CSR dimensions as has been followed by Daus et al. (2014) in the study ‘Social responsibility reporting of Islamic Banks: evidence from Indonesia”. An equally weighted index is used for scoring the CSR disclosures. Findings: The results revealed that the Islamic Banks disclosed most about their ‘Corporate Vision’ and ‘Top Management’ respectively, while least about their ‘Products, Service and Fair dealings with supply chain ‘related activities. The banks varied remarkably in disclosing about their CSR activities towards their employees and the environment, with a range of 60% and 63% respectively. The banks’ shariya compliancy in business transactions is found to be 61% on average. Research limitation: The scope of the result lies within the realm of the disclosures made in annual reports only. Moreover, the CSR disclosure coding overwhelmingly has been done by the researcher only. Contribution/practical implication: Creating awareness amongst the Islamic banks (IB) and their stakeholders about any discrepancy between the ethical claims of the IBs and their communicated CSR activities, can lead to a scope of a positive change in the social roles of the banks in future. Further research: a time series analysis may be carried out on the IBs of Bangladesh to gauge a better picture of the CSR practice of IBs in Bangladesh, using data from more sources.