An application on corporate social responsibility in the Turkish banking sector

Traditionally, the primary purpose of financial management is known as profit maximization. Companies are also responsible for the interests of their stakeholders and society. This modern approach, which has different interpretations in different disciplines, is defined as corporate social responsibility (CSR). Companies share their CSR activities with the public through annual reports or special reports. In this study, banking, which is the most important sub-sector for the financial sector, is discussed by focusing on the environmental CSR practices of the Turkish banking sector. The data obtained from the websites of publicly-held deposit banks' annual reports, integrated reports and sustainability reports for the years 2012-2020 were examined, and scoring was made using the content analysis method. The relationship between these data and independent variables such as the size of banks, NPLs, corporate governance indexes and return on equity, etc., was revealed using the Panel EGLS method. According to the model results, statistically significant relationships were found between non-performing loans, return on equity, size and CSR. The research, therefore, answered several questions on the CSR practices in the banking sector using empirical analysis.