Drivers of Corporate Social Responsibility Disclosures: Evidence from Turkish Banking Sector

Abstract

Traditionally, the primary objective of financial management is known as the maximization of shareholder wealth. Companies are also responsible for the interests of stakeholders and society at large. The concept which describes this new approach is called as “Corporate Social Responsibility” (CSR). It is an interdisciplinary and multidimensional concept. Companies disclose their CSR activities through annual reports or a special CSR report. Measurement of social performance is a subjective and judgmental issue, and one of the methods for this purpose is to score companies based on their CSR disclosures. The level and quality of CSR disclosures depend on several factors. We search for the relationship between CSR disclosure scores and corporate governance related bank characteristics by considering five dimensions of CSR. We find out that stock exchange listing, ownership and bank type influence the CSR disclosure of banks.