Corporate Social-Environmental Performance versus Financial Performance of Banks in Central and Eastern European Countries

Justyna Fijałkowska, Beata Zyznarska-Dworczak and Przemysław Garsztka
Additional contact information
Justyna Fijałkowska: Department of Finance and Accounting, Faculty of Management, University of Social Sciences, Sienkiewicza Street, No. 9, 90-113 Łódź, Poland
Beata Zyznarska-Dworczak: Department of Accounting, Poznan University of Economics and Business, al. Niepodległości 10, 61-875 Poznań, Poland
Przemysław Garsztka: Department of Econometrics, Poznan University of Economics and Business, al. Niepodległości 10, 61-875 Poznań, Poland

Sustainability, 2018, vol. 10, issue 3, 1-22

Abstract: Developed market economies demonstrate a growing interest in issues concerning Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and its effects, confirmed by the sizeable theoretical and empirical literature on this issue. A substantial research proves also the positive relation between CSR commitment and financial results of banks in mature markets. However, there is less evidence on CSR existence and its impact in other geographical areas, especially in the research concerning Central and Eastern European Countries (CEEC). In our study we analyze the interrelation between being socially responsible and tangible financial outcome (Corporate Financial Performance—CFP) of banks in the CEEC. The aim is also to empirically verify the relation between efficiency of corporate social-environmental performance (CSP) and the efficiency of CFP for CEEC banks. In our study, we analyze the financial and CSP data of the biggest public banks in CEEC. The researched period is 2012–2016. The empirical part analyzes the interrelation between CSP and CFP based on the panel regression. Moreover, in order to evaluate the CSP efficiency and the CFP efficiency we use the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) approach. The empirical results reveal that in case of banks in the Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) region being socially responsible is not reflected in the bottom line. The financial condition of the banks also does not impact the CSR engagement. Our study confirms, however, that CEEC banks with better financial efficiency have higher efficiency of CSR activities. The conclusions may lead to the improved decision-making processes concerning CSR activities and their communication in banks in CEEC.

Keywords: CSR; financial performance; banking; public-interest banks; Central and Eastern Europe; CEE (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (40)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/3/772/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/3/772/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:10:y:2018:i:3:p:772-:d:135793

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().