Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a multidimensional concept concerned with environmental and social impacts on business operations ^[1][2][34,35]. It also addresses society expectations of the organizations working in and dealing with that society ^[3][36]. This implies that it can include multiple meanings, aspects, or practices, such as philanthropy, corporate citizenship ^[4][37], and ethical responsibility ^[5][38]. Besides, CSR can be related to various corporate practices, such as environmental issues ^[6][39] or corporate governance ^[7][40].

CSR in the banking industry aims to align profitable businesses with society requirements. This is important, as it enables a more sustainable organization, as recommended by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development. Hence, CSR reporting can be employed by the banking institutions to enhance their sustainability and justify their existence. This can be beneficial in eliminating a potentially vast discrepancy between business economic values and the values that are usually accepted by society ^[8][9][41,42]. Here, a broader definition of CSR disclosure can be helpful, such as Gray et al.’s ^[10][43] definition. They defined CSR disclosure as the “process of communicating the social and environmental effects of organizations’ economic actions to particular interest groups within society and society at large” ^[10][43].

By reviewing the previous CSR studies conducted in developing markets, we observed that they can be grouped into several themes, as follows. Firstly, some studies addressed variances in sustainability practices of different kinds of banks, notably commercial and Islamic banks. For example, Hassan and Harahap ^[11][44] found that CSR is not considered a significant concern by most Islamic banks. Farook et al. ^[12][45] observed variability in Islamic bank disclosure levels of CSR, that depended on the effect on the relevant public and the extant corporate governance mechanisms. Further, Rashid et al. ^[13][46] discussed two layers of CSR involvement in Islamic banks: committing to Islamic Shari’ah and commitment towards customers, employees, and society. They found that the latter kind of commitments was more observable in the examined banks. Mallin et al. ^[14][47] found that Islamic banks showed commitment to the vision and mission, the board and top management, the financial products/services dimensions, and a universal disclosure perspective. In contrast, they paid less attention to the environmental dimension and voluntary disclosures. Aracil ^[15][48] noted that the CSR performance of Turkish Islamic banks was mainly based on informal institutions and philanthropy, in contrast to commercial banks. Lui et al. ^[16][49] found that Malaysian Islamic banks had a higher level of CSR disclosures than their conventional counterparts. Finally, Shahwan and Habib ^[17][27] evaluated the effect of CSR on efficiency for Egyptian Islamic and conventional banks, finding no significant differences.

Secondly, another set of studies examined the impact of CSR on bank performance and functioning, including financial performance, enhancing customer loyalty, brand equity, and corporate image and reputation ^{[18][19][20][21][22]}[50,51,52,53,54]. The majority of these studies found that CSR could positively affect corporate performance. For example, Aramburu and Pescador ^[22][54] found that corporate reputation mediates the association between CSR and customer loyalty in the Basque Country. Forcadell and Aracil ^[23][55] found that bank efforts to maintain a reputation for CSR positively affected the performance of European banks. Maqbool and Zameer ^[24][56] found that CSR positively affected the financial performance of Indian banks ^[14][25][47,57]. Moreover, other studies noted that CSR could enhance corporate values, reduce the cost of capital, and improve capital inflows ^[26][27][58,59].

Finally, some studies sought to provide a detailed examination of the status of CSR as practiced and reported in developing countries (see, for example, ^[28][60] in Malaysia; ^[29][61] in Ireland; ^[30][31][17,62] in Bangladesh; ^[32][63] in Pakistan; ^[33][18] in Tunisia; ^[34][19] in Lebanon; ^[35][64] in Poland; ^[36][20] in Kazakhstan; and ^[37][65] in Nigeria). In particular, Hamid ^[28][60] examined CSR adoption by Malaysian banks, finding that disclosures on products/services are more frequent than those disclosures related to environmental and energy, human resources, and community. Douglas et al. ^[29][61] assessed the use of CSR by Irish banks, indicating that they are well behind their counterparts in other countries, especially concerning the volume of social responsibility disclosures. Khan ^[30][17] examined CSR adoption in Bangladeshi commercial banks, showing that CSR reporting is moderate and that the varieties of CSR elements are remarkable. Sharif and Rashid ^[32][63] described the level and extent of CSR reporting by Pakistani-listed banks, highlighting their apparent activity concerning CSR performance. Chakroun et al. ^[33][18] investigated the scope and trends of voluntary CSR disclosure in the annual reports and websites of Tunisian listed banks. They revealed that Tunisian banks reported CSR information mainly in a narrative form. Human resources were the main focus in annual reports, whereas, on websites, community involvement was the most widespread theme. Khalil and O’Sullivan ^[34][19] examined CSR by Lebanese banks, finding that the most reported category was the community, and the least reported was the environment.

However, to the best of our kno wledge, no previous studies have examined CSR adoption in the Egyptian banking sector, except Shahwan and Habib ^[17][38][27,33]. Shahwan and Habib ^[17][27] focused on the difference between Islamic and conventional banks, and Tantawi and Youssef ^[38][33] examined the relationships between branding issues and corporate social performance.  Therefore, this study aims to contribute to the existing literature by exploring the current status of CSR practices used in the Egyptian banking industry.