Impact of statutory regulation and key internal factors on firm’s corporate social responsibility: An emerging economy perspective

This study aims to examine the impact of statutory regulatory order by the government on the degree of corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance and disclosures. It also aims to empirically investigate the relationship of a firm’s key internal and governance factors with CSR performance and disclosures.

The study is based on empirical data from all banking firms listed in the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) for a period of 2011-2015. The difference in difference analysis has been used to test the regulatory impact, where content analysis has been performed to find CSR disclosure scores. The multivariate regression analysis has been used to test hypotheses to find impact of firm’s internal factor on CSR disclosures.

The analysis and results of the study show that there is no significant impact of statutory regulatory impact on a firm’s level of CSR performance and disclosure. On the other hand, the study has found that board expertizes and board meetings have significant positive impact on firm’s CSR while no significant impact is found for firm networks to influence firm’s CSR disclosures.

The main research limitation of the study is that it covers all listed firms of the banking industry in Bangladesh. Because of data inconsistency, other industries are not included in the data sample of this study.

The value of the study lies in its contribution to the empirical investigation of regulatory impact and key internal and governance factors in a developing country perspective, which will add value to the CSR literature.