Corporate Social Reporting: A Preliminary Study of Bank Islam Malaysia Berhad (BIMB)

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to examine the themes, locations, extent, and also trends of corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure of Bank Islam Malaysia Berhad (BIMB) from 1992 to 2005. A disclosure index (checklist) and the extent of such disclosures were measured using content analysis based on number of sentences. The findings of this study show that BIMB prefers to disclose themes associated with employees, product, and service contributions and community involvement. Among the most popular locations in disclosing such information are in the chairman’s statement, financial statements, and directors’ report. The results also reveal that the bank has improved in terms of volume and the manner of presenting or disclosing CSR from year to year. This study is the first of its kind to be conducted on a company in a specific industry in Malaysia using a longitudinal approach, and its empirical findings complement the findings of prior studies.

Keywords

• Bank Islam Malaysia Berhad, corporate social reporting, disclosure, content analysis, longitudinal, Malaysia.