Purpose

The paper aims to explore the impact of governance attributes and cultural commitment on CSR reporting practices of public, private and foreign banks in India.

Design/Methodology/Approach

Sample 15 (public, private and foreign) banks were selected using market capitalisation. CSRRP index is prepared using content analysis. Kuruskall-Wallis and Mann Whitney U test has been applied to test the significance between governance attributes (GA), corporate culture (CC) and corporate financial performance (CFP) with respect to level of corporate social responsibility reporting practices (CSRRP). Multi-collinearity test was used to test the collinearity between independent variables and multiple regression was employed to test the relationship between independent and dependent variables.

Findings

Governance attributes have a strong predicting power on CSRRP due to increased ratio of non-executive director and presence of women on bank board. However, there is a significant negative relation between employee turnovers as a proxy of cultural commitment on CSRRP. Further, the finding reveals significant difference between GA, CC and CFP with respect to level of CSRRP in private and foreign sector banks.

Research Limitations/Implications

The data covers a five-year period of 2014-15 to 2018-19. The paper deals with secondary reports as it brings more accuracy than primary research.

Practical Implications

The paper indicates governance attributes are responsible for greater CSRRP. However, financial figures are not always the reason for good CSRRP. Bank with low financial performance also performs good reporting practices.

Originality

Distinct from the previous empirical research as the impact of employee turnover rate as a proxy of cultural commitment has never been checked in previous literature with governance attributes and financial figures on CSRRP of Indian public, private and foreign banks.

Keywords: Governance, Culture, CSR Reporting Practices Index, Public, Private & Foreign Banks.