International Journal of Law and Management

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting information of Bangladeshi listed commercial banks and explores the potential effects of corporate governance (CG) elements on CSR disclosures.

Design/methodology/approach – The annual reports of all private commercial banks (PCB) for the year 2007-2008 are examined to analyse the banks' CSR reporting practice using content analysis. It also considers three elements of CG such as non-executive directors, existence of foreign nationalities and women representation in the board. The multiple regressions were used to measure the impact of CG elements on banks' CSR reporting initiatives.

Findings – The results of the study demonstrate that though voluntary, overall CSR reporting by Bangladeshi PCB are rather moderate, however, the varieties of CSR items are really impressive. The results also displayed no significant relationship between the women representation in the board and CSR reporting. Conversely, non-executive directors and existence of foreign nationalities have been found the significant impact on the CSR reporting.

Research limitations/implications – The main limitations of the paper are that it considers PCB from only one country and uses annual reports disclosures from a single year. The results of the study can be used by researchers to analyse the benefits of including the non-executive directors and foreign nationals on different types of CSR initiatives and standard setters to set the suitable CSR policy guidelines with a view to reinforce such initiatives.

Originality/value – This unique paper divulges the CSR related disclosure with possible impact of CG in the specific context of a transitional economy's banks such as Bangladesh. The paper contributes to the CSR literature as it presents empirical evidence of the influences of CG structure on the practices of CSR activities in developing countries' banking sector setting.