Corporate social responsibility activity reportage on bank websites in Ghana

Abstract

Purpose -The concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has witnessed a resurgence in the management literature in recent years. This might be due to a renewed focus on corporate governance and ethical practices of companies the world over. This current study seeks to focus on how banks operating in Ghana communicate their CSR programmes and intentions via their corporate websites. Design/methodology/approach -A conceptual framework was adapted from the extant literature and was used as the basis of a content analysis of 16 banks in Ghana. This paper adopts a qualitative research approach drawing upon available information from the websites of these 16 banks. Findings -One of the banks that had won the most CSR awards at the Ghana banking awards had the poorest CSR communication content on its corporate website. It was also noted that banks that had never won a CSR award previously seemed to have a better organised structure in respect of their CSR activities on their websites. These findings clearly demonstrate the challenges that sometimes exist in transferring bricks-and-mortar organisational capabilities to online environments. Originality/value -Studies focussing on online CSR communications in emerging market contexts are almost non-existent and this study makes an important contribution in not only addressing this imbalance, but more importantly in improving bank marketing practices in Ghana.

Responsabilidad social empresarial en la dimensión laboral: caso Bancolombia y BBVA

“…En la revisión realizada de los artículos científicos publicados en los últimos trece años acerca de la RSE en el sector bancario y/o financiero se encontraron 47 documentos, y la mayoría de ellos se concentran en estudiar la divulgación de la RSE a través de sus páginas Web, sus formas, a quién la dirigen y en otros casos, pretenden medir su impacto en los clientes; algunos ejemplos son: Farook & Lanis (2005), Castelo & Lima (2008), Khan, et al (2009), Hassan & Syafri (2010, Hinson, et al (2010). Con respecto a la RSE en los bancos los estudios muestran de forma general lo siguiente:…”

Online Corporate Social Responsibility Reporting in the Croatian Banking Sector

“…Accordingly, the aim of corporate social responsibility is building reputation and achieving positive operating results. On the other hand, according to the legitimacy theory as another theoretical stronghold of corporate social responsibility, CSR reporting may be defined as the way organizations justify the reasons for their survival, profitability or actions, and build their reputation by paying a debt to society (Hinson et al, 2010). CSR reporting may be seen as a function of gaining and maintaining organizational legitimacy.…”

“…Branco and Rodriguez (2006), who investigated social responsibility of banks in Portugal, defined a total of twenty-three CSR activities and categorized them into the following four groups: a) environment; b) human resources; c) customers and products; and d) community. In this paper, we apply Branco and Rodrigues's approach (2006) as a reference CSR categorization used in recent studies (Hinson et al, 2010;Jizi, Salama, Dixon, & Stratling, 2014;Kiliç, 2016).…”

“…Their findings revealed that the level of CSR reporting depends greatly upon bank size (Branco & Rodrigues, 2006, Gao, Heravi, & Xiao, 2005Hossain, 2008;Kiliç, 2016). Also, regarding the nature of CSR reporting, the studies indicated that banks primarily disclose community related information, followed by employee related, environmental and other information (Branco & Rodrigues, 2006;Gao et al, 2005;Hinson, Boateng, & Madichie, 2010;Kiliç, 2016;Scholtens, 2009). However, although corporate websites have become the primary media for CSR disclosure (Moreno & Capriotti, 2009), there are few international studies that examine online corporate social responsibility reporting by banks (Kiliç, 2016, p. 551).…”

Institutional Stakeholder-Driven Corporate Social Responsibility Understanding and Practices among Managers: The Case of Ghana’s High-Risk Industries

“…Nonetheless, existing studies have largely focused attention on the extractive industry (Hilson, 2007;Dashwood & Puplampu, 2010;Yankson, 2010;Hilson, 2012), construction industry (Lichtenstein, Badu, Owusu-Manu, Edwards, & Holt, 2012), high-impact industry sectors (Abugre, 2014), banking and financial industry (Ofori & Hinson, 2007b;Hinson, Boateng, & Madichie, 2010;Hinson, 2011), the telecommunication industry (Hinson & Kodua, 2012;Mahmoud & Hinson, 2012), local and foreign firms (Kuada & Hinson, 2012). Others have also examined CSR application at the national level (Amponsah-Tawiah & Dartey-Baah, 2011a;2011b).…”