Online CSR reportage of award‐winning versus non award‐winning banks in Ghana
| Published date | 17 May 2011 |
| Pages | 102-115 |
| Date | 17 May 2011 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/14779961111148622 |
| Author | Robert Ebo Hinson |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management |
Online CSR reportage of
award-winning versus non
award-winning banks in Ghana
Robert Ebo Hinson
Department of Marketing and Customer Management,
University of Ghana Business School, Legon-Accra, Ghana
Abstract
Purpose – Banks spend thousands ofdollars on several CSR activities and communicating the same to
defined stakeholders becomes a strategic task that must be artfully managed by the banks. Bank web
sites now represent a useful communication platform in the reportage of CSR activities. This paper aims
to report on CSR reportage amongst four leading banks in Ghana. Two of them have won CSR industry
awards while the others have not.
Design/methodology/approach – A case study approach was adopted using Hinson et al.’s online
CSR framework to analyze CSR reportage in the four banks. Two of them (one indigenous and the other,
local) had previously won CSR awards at a Ghana Banking Awards ceremony in the last five years, and
two had not. The data drawn from the banks were analyzed within and across the four cases.
Findings – Agricultural development bank, the bank with the most socially responsible bank of the
year awards, has the weakest online CSR reportage in the study with just one CSR report online.
Originality/value – CSR communication is a rapidly evolving field of scholarship and this study
adds to the extant literature from a developing economy banking perspective.
Keywords Organizationalbehaviour, Corporate, Social responsibility, Banks,Banking, Web sites,
Virtual banking,Virtual communication, Ghana
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become part of the corporate fabric . Many
private firms in Ghana are extensively incorporating CSR into their strategies in order to
generate stakeholder goodwill and boost market value. Banks in Ghana are not left out
but have also adopted CSR as a means of improving relationships with stakeholders and
strengthening their reputation. As banks and organisations engage in CSR activities, the
means of communicating these activities to achieve the goal of building a good corporate
image become necessary. The internet presents new opportunities for enhancing
the marketing communication process (Heinen, 1996). To an extent, CSR can also be
conceptualised as part of a company’s marketing and communication programmes
(Ofori and Hinson, 2007). To increase public recognition of the best performing banks in
the various areas of banking, the Ghana Banking Awards was instituted as a vehicle to
showcase and applaud best performing banks in various categories of the Ghanaian
financial services market (www.ghanabankingawards.com/gba/index.php). Among the
award categories is a CSR award given to the overall best performing bank in terms of
CSR. This study sets out to investigate online CSR reportage between two CSR-award
winning and two non CSR-award winning banks in Ghana.
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/1477-996X.htm
JICES
9,2
102
Received 7 April 2010
Revised 3 February 2011
Accepted 29 March 2011
Journal of Information,
Communication & Ethics in Society
Vol. 9 No. 2, 2011
pp. 102-115
qEmerald Group Publishing Limited
1477-996X
DOI 10.1108/14779961111148622
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