Corporate social resposibility and financial performance in developing economy: The Nigeria banking sector experience

The concept of corporate social responsibility is an emerging management philosophy which describes how corporations adopt social factors to their commercial operations without jeopardizing the interest of its investors and other stakeholders. It is based on this premises that the researcher seek to review and evaluate the contributions and effects of CSR in the modern day business performance especially from the developing economies perspectives, which has limited researches and literatures due to the fact that most writers believed the concept is more prominent with the west and developed economies. The concept of CSR in management emanated from the need to address corporate governance, corporate sustainability, corporate citizenship and also ensure smooth communication and relationships amongst its stakeholders. To some scholars CSR is just one aspect of marketing management which addresses how the corporation relates to its public called public relations in a bid to satisfy the stakeholders of the organization which includes the customers, the NGOs, and the host community. The case of Nigeria in this thesis is of important on CSR perspective in Africa because Nigeria is the most populous nation in Africa and with the biggest market. Also, banking sector is an important sector which oil the wheel of the economy because Nigeria and most African Nations are import base economy with limited productive activities. The study then focus on how the incorporations of CSR concept into the policy thrust of bank in Nigeria affects their profitability using Return on Asset, Return on Equity and Profit after Tax as dependent variables, while the CSR engagement of the bank taking from the stakeholders perspectives are use as the independent variables. Key Words: Corporate Social Responsibility, Developing Economies, Return on Asset, Return on Equity, Profitability, Stakeholders, Corporate Citizenship, Corporate sustainability