The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Reporting Practices of the Banking Industry in the United Kingdom

This paper focuses on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the corporate social responsibility reporting (CSRR) practice of the UK’s banking industry. It particularly examines the extent to which the banks’ quality and quantity have changed in the wake of the pandemic. In addition, it explores changes in the banks’ CSR dimension focus and investigates how the COVID-19 outbreak has influenced the utilisation of visuals in CSR reports. Furthermore, the paper follows a deductive approach and uses an archival research strategy. Content analysis technique was used to analyse CSR reports. Global reporting initiative (GRI) standards were adopted to formulate criteria for coding data before performing a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) test to analyse data collected for reporting quality and CSR dimension variables. The research reveals no statistically significant changes, and a lack of accountability in CSR reporting quality by the banks in the face of the COVID-19 crisis. It was found that, on the whole, the pandemic has not led to an increase in the quantity of banks’ CSR reports. The findings also show that CSR reports focus during the pandemic has been predominantly on the economic dimension. In addition, it was found that, despite focusing on the economic dimension of CSR, the use of photographic images depicting societal commitments increased significantly in CSR reports published during the COVID-19 pandemic. The research suggests that CSR reporting practice of UK banks during the COVID-19 pandemic has been driven by legitimacy theory.