Social Reporting of Banks in Poland

Abstract

Banks, as institutions of public trust with a dual role in society (commercial and benevolent), should base their activities on ethical behavior towards society and respect for the natural environment. The modern economy presents new business challenges and one of them is the need for greater transparency. The way to communicate the effects of the adopted social responsibility strategy is to create and publish social reports. The aim of this publication is to present the issues of social reporting as well as to evaluate social reports prepared by banks in Poland. The research hypotheses are: reporting on social responsibility is important for banks and reporting on the social responsibility of banks varies in terms of form and content. The analysis of reporting in the Polish banking sector has proved that banks are well aware of the potential to communicate the concept of social responsibility. However, the study also exposed the imperfections of reporting of Polish banks.