Evaluation of the use of Corporate Social Responsibility to Address the Practices of the UK Banking Industry

Abstract

This study is an empirical project utilising case studies and the analysis of corporate material documents as its primary source to consider the philosophy of CSR in the UK Banking Industry. The research asks how CSR has changed according to the economic, legal, social and political background and whether the philosophy of CSR can be used to improve the practices of the UK Banking Industry. The project uses the corporate reports of six UK and three European/Worldwide institutional case studies and conducts both a content and critical discourse analysis of the documents to answer the research questions.

The study found a lack of reliability in corporate material, the abandonment of corporate citizenship in practice and a lack of correlation between corporate size and CSR efforts. However, the most significant findings relate to the discourse of CSR. This research found that in times of increased profits, efforts on philanthropic activities soared. Yet, in times of crises and/or scandal, such as the GFC, and exposure of manipulation and mis-selling scandals, or more recently, the COVID-19 pandemic, a reduction or abandonment of philanthropic activity occurred. This is because the UK Banking Institutions studied did not have an embedded CSR philosophy. The six UK institutions did not view the practice of CSR as a compulsory, embedded element of the business but as an optional, ancillary extra, used to create or maintain a social licence. This research argues that unless this changes, the philosophy of CSR will not be sufficient to improve the practices of the UK Banking Industry. It is proposed the solution to this is greater governmental control in institutional CSR activities.