Practices of corporate social responsibility in the UAE banking sector: An assessment

Abstract

There is a conspicuous lack of research on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) practices undertaken in the United Arab Emirates, more so in the banking sector. This paper attempts to fill the gap by examining the government policies drawn up to support enterprises in their CSR efforts. The paper aims to examine the nature and practices of CSR undertaken by the banking sectors in the UAE. UAE's desire to go beyond being a tourist destination to an international business hub and financial market has resulted in their desire to set up CSR activities. In the UAE the banking sectors are the first to have adopted social responsibility and worked to advance it. Banks like Mashreq, ADCB, and Emirates NBD have actively involved themselves in CSR projects. For this study, ten UAE banks (Islamic and Non-Islamic banks) have been chosen based on purposive sampling to ensure the selected banks are currently or in the recent past involved themselves in CSR projects.