Corporate Social Responsibility and Profitability of Nigeria Banks - A Causal Relationship

Abstract

The rising cost of running business organizations in Nigeria and the lack of basic infrastructure, as well as divergent views in the literature regarding the type of relationship that exists between CSR and Corporate performance have necessitated this paper that examined the relationship between corporate social responsibility and profitability in the Nigerian banking industry using First Bank of Nigeria (FBN) Plc as the case study.  Annual reports formed the secondary source of data collection where the CSR expenditure and profit after tax for the period of 2001-2010 was used for the computational experiment. The data collected for this study were analysed using correlation and regression analysis. The hypothesis formulated was tested. The results of the regression analysis as showed the impact of corporate social responsibility expenditure on profitability in Nigeria banks which revealed (Beta= 0.945, p<.01). This means that for every unit change increment in the CSR expenditure will lead to .945 or 95% increase in the profit after tax of the company. The R-square was 0.893 which shows that CSR accounted for 89.3% of the variation in the profit after tax of First Bank Plc.The study concluded that there is positive relationship between banks CSR activities and profitability. The implications of this study include the need for banks to demonstrate high level of commitment to corporate social responsibility based on stakeholder theory in order to enhance their profitability in the long run.

Keywords: CSR; banking; profitability; causal; stakeholder theory; Nigeria