Disclosure of Corporate Social Responsibility Practices

Abstract

This study aimed to depict the disclosure of corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices of commercial banks in Bangladesh. The sample included annual reports for the year 2018 of twenty-eight commercial banks out of thirty commercial banks listed on the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) as of June 30, 2019. The data were analyzed using the content analysis technique. The findings indicate that commercial banks have made CSR contributions to eight sectors and disclosed CSR information through thirteen sections of the annual report covering a mixture of four tools. Moreover, although most of the commercial banks have disclosed some quantitative data, the aggregate amount of qualitative and mixed types of CSR disclosure is higher than that of purely quantitative ones. Additionally, all commercial banks have utilized ‘other expense' section for CSR expenditures in the body of ‘financial statements', but most of the commercial banks have ignored ‘corporate social responsibility' sub-head and preferred ‘Donation' or ‘Subscription and Donation' sub-heads in the ‘notes to financial statements'. The overall finding indicates that the CSR disclosure issue in Bangladesh has not received sufficient attention from the commercial banks. This study, therefore, recommends that CSR reporting should be formalized and regulated to enhance stakeholders' confidence in an entity's CSR practice.