Open AccessCorporate Social Reporting By Mauritian Banks
Author(s) -
Dineshwar Ramdhony
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
international journal of accounting and financial reporting
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2162-3082
DOI - 10.5296/ijafr.v5i2.8067
Subject(s) - corporate social responsibility , accounting , business , corporate governance , legitimacy , content analysis , visibility , odds , public relations , finance , political science , logistic regression , sociology , law , medicine , social science , physics , optics , politics
The paper examines CSR disclosures by commercial banks operating in Mauritius. Annual reports for the year 2011 were scrutinized using content analysis. Five categories of disclosure were chosen in line with the Code of corporate governance and prior studies. Due to the small number (20) of banks operating in the country all banks were selected. Findings show that banks with higher visibility disclose more CSR information thus confirming that the legitimacy theory is an explanation for CSR disclosure by Mauritian banks. CSR reporting is prevalent among all banks but forty percent of banks disclose CSR information relating to one category only showing a narrow view of CSR. The primary area of disclosure is ‘Human resources’ which is at odds with previous studies. The paper contributes to the scarce literature on CSR disclosures by banks in a developing country.