Corporate Social Reporting Practices (With Special Reference to Banks in India)

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting information of Indian Banks in public as well as private sector and explores the potential effects of financial characteristics on CSR disclosure.

The annual reports of all the public and private sector banks for the year 2009–2010 are examined to analyse the banks’ CSR reporting practice. An index comprising of 27 indicators is prepared and each bank's annual report is analysed for the items under the different categories. If a banking company discloses an item of information in the annual report, then “1” will be awarded and if the item is not disclosed then “0” will be awarded. Thereafter each bank's corporate social responsibility reporting index (CSRRI) is measured.

It also considers the impact of three financial characteristics viz. profitability, gearing and size. The multiple regressions were used to measure the impact of financial characteristics on banks’ CSR reporting initiatives.