Online CSR reportage of Award-winning versus non award-winning banks in Ghana

Abstract

urpose – Banks spend thousands of dollars on several CSR activities and communicating the same to defined stakeholders becomes a strategic task that must be artfully managed by the banks. Bank web sites now represent a useful communication platform in the reportage of CSR activities. This paper aims to report on CSR reportage amongst four leading banks in Ghana. Two of them have won CSR industry awards while the others have not.

Design/methodology/approach – A case study approach was adopted using Hinson et al.'s online CSR framework to analyze CSR reportage in the four banks. Two of them (one indigenous and the other, local) had previously won CSR awards at a Ghana Banking Awards ceremony in the last five years, and two had not. The data drawn from the banks were analyzed within and across the four cases.

Findings – Agricultural development bank, the bank with the most socially responsible bank of the year awards, has the weakest online CSR reportage in the study with just one CSR report online.

Originality/value – CSR communication is a rapidly evolving field of scholarship and this study adds to the extant literature from a developing economy banking perspective.