A Study Of CSR Activities Among Malaysian Banks: Comparison Between Islamic Banks And Conventional Banks

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has had a long and varied history since its beginnings in the early 1930s (Berle and Means, 1932; Carroll, 1999). It has become part of the corporate agenda for business development and survival, and is considered important in explaining business relationships and business management in order to achieve business goals. CSR acts by providing a framework for strategic management and business relationship among various stakeholders. In general, CSR can be divided into four main dimensions: the environmental, the human resource, the philanthropic, and human rights. The study tries to investigate on how the Malaysian Banking Institutions react towards these four dimensions of CSR. As Malaysian banking system is unique by implementing dual banking system (Conventional bank as well as Islamic Bank. The study tries to explore on how Islamic bank differ with conventional counterpart. For that purpose, this paper employed content analysis of five years periods of annual report of Malaysian Banking Institutions. It comprises of total 39 banks which include 17 conventional banks and 12 Islamic Banks. The study found, Conventional banks have better implementation of CSR dimensions compare to Islamic Banks. The finding is interesting to be explored further on why least performance of Islamic Bank compare to Conventional Bank.

Keywords: Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Islamic Banks