Social Reporting of Egyptian Islamic Banks: Insights from the Post-Revolution Era

Exploring the evolving motives underlying corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosures in developing countries: the case of “political CSR” reporting

“…Ali et al , 2017; Elshabasy, 2018; Kühn et al , 2018), including in Egypt. For example, Osman (2019) has investigated the CSR motivation of three Islamic banks in Egypt post-revolution and indicated that these banks have followed “ an image enhancement strategy in the new Egyptian context after two revolutions to satisfy increasing social expectations ” (p. 354). In the same vein, the political instability in Egypt following the 2011 revolution appears to encourage companies to disclose CSR activities as a “ strategic tool to improve corporate image, to control policy and regulatory uncertainties, and to contain stakeholders ’ concerns ” (El-Bassiouny and Letmathe, 2019, p. 14).…”

“…Our interview data reveal that participants have deeply reflected on the legitimation challenges brought by the 2011 revolution and have appreciated the limits of transactional strategies involving traditional constituents, with a preference for pursuing consequential and structural forms of moral legitimacy. Our contribution first lies in uncovering evidence of CSR reporting amidst a significant political change in Egypt and the deeper motivations underlying CSR engagement as opposed to previously reported instances of transactional motives (Darrag and Crowther, 2017), image enhancement (Osman, 2019) and instrumental stakeholder management (El-Bassiouny and Letmathe, 2019). Second, and conceptually, we bring to the fore the implications of instrumental and political CSR (Scherer et al , 2016; Scherer, 2018) to the accounting literature and to the context of developing countries.…”