Factors Influencing Corporate Social Responsibility Programmes Among The Commercial Banks In Kenya

Abstract

Corporate Social Responsibility is a recent development in business which is defined as company's voluntary contribution to the society and environment which goes beyond production of goods and services. Today it is important that each business should balance objectives without allowing any conflict to arise between the business and the society at large. The study investigated on factors influencing Corporate Social Responsibility programmes implementation among the commercial banks in Kenya. Currently there are 44 commercial banks in Kenya as per the Central Bank of Kenya 2011. From 2005 to date commercial banks are actively engaging themselves in the CSR Programmes and this leaves some questions like what is in CSR for banks unanswered therefore the study . sought to find out what was influencing CSR programmes among the commercial banks in Kenya. The objectives of the study included; finding out influence of physical environmental effects on CSR programme, detennining the influence of the stakeholder's values on CSR programme, establishing the influence of the company's policy guidelines and regulations on CSR programme, finding out how ethical practices influenced CSR programme and detennining how profitability influenced CSR programm among the commercial banks in Kenya. The research used descriptive research design. It was relevant because it report way the things are at the present. The target population was from the 44 commercial banks as per the Central bank of Kenya. The researcher purposively sampled 7 commercial banks with 35 branches and more and the remaining 37 were randomly sampled. Sampling was done according to Mulusa (1990) who suggested that 30% of the target population is representative enough to generalize characteristic being investigated. The respondents comprised of 18 c01m11ercial banks with 1 CSR manager and 1 CSR officer from each bank giving a total sample size of 36 respondents. The research made use of self- administered questionnaires as a tool of data collection instrunlent. Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics method. The analyzed data from the questionnaire was summarized and presented in terms percentages, frequency distribution tables and bar graphs by use of computer software known as Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS). The study found out that physical environment effects, company's policy and guidelines on CSR, Stakeholder's values, profitability and the ethical practices influenced CSR programme implementation among the commercial banks in Kenya. Therefore CSR should be embraced by organizations because it is not only philanthropic but also have other benefit which includes; CSR is profitable to the organization, CSR creates customer royalty and finally CSR improves corporate image.