International banks’ CSR disclosures after the 2008 crisis

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to determine the corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure level of 35 international banks across the world at the end of 2013 and analyse the changes in their disclosure patterns compared to 2005 from the institutional perspective. Design/methodology/approach – Content analysis of international banks’ web-sites and CSR reports. Findings – As expected, CSR disclosure scores of international banks in 2013 were significantly larger than in 2005. Despite addressing the legitimacy gap after the 2008 crisis, significant room for improvements remained in the context of sustainable products, implementation of environmental management policies and introduction of CSR initiatives (the latter especially for Northern American banks). Although the transnational context had contributed to the gradual convergence of CSR disclosure scores, the existence of differing national and organisational contexts had maintained some of the diversity across banks. Research limitations/implications – Content analysis approach used limits the possibilities to objectively grasp the depth of CSR and the sample remains biased towards larger international banks headquartered in Europe. Practical implications – Stakeholders should remain vary of “window-dressing” attempts and reward only those banks that actually contribute to the society. Social implications – Intergovernmental organisations should continue to develop both new and already existing financial sector CSR initiatives to improve the stability of the global financial sector. Originality/value – Previous studies have not investigated international banks’ CSR disclosures on broader global samples during the post-2008-crisis period and have not considered the institutional context of their CSR.