Corporate Social Responsibilities (CSR) and Empirical Insight into CSR Practises of Companies Listed on the BIST 100

Abstract

Purpose – The main aim of this study is to evaluate the role, importance, advantages and disadvantages of CSR and to understand to what extent the theory of CSR has been converted into the practice in companies listed on the BIST 100. Design/methodology/approach – This study is based on combination of qualitative and quantitative approaches. Fundamentally, it can be divided into two parts. The first part provides a theoretical framework for the main issues of CSR. In this respect, the first part of the study uses library-based information, such as books, articles and web-sources. The second part analyses the practicability of these theories by making an empirical research about CSR practises of companies listed on the BIST 100. The sample size of this study consists of randomly selected 30 companies that are carried out their commercial activities within the different sectors. All information used throughout this study is primary and indicates the 2020/2021 data of these companies on their annual reports or webpages. The BIST 100 is accepted as the main indicator used to measure the market and volume performance of the top 100 shares traded in the BIST. It is an index that is carefully examined by all major investors. The fluctuation expectations of the stock market are made by taking into account the BIST 100 Index. Briefly, the shares of these 100 corporations reflect the overall performance of the BIST. Hence, in order to get more realistic results about the success of corporations on disclosing level of CSR, the BIST 100 Index has been applied in this research. Findings – The finding of this study showed that the CSR helps to increase the number of long-term investors in financial markets, to improve the quality of products and services in corporations, and to reduce social, environmental, ethical problems in society. Due to these advantages of the CSR, the empirical research also proved that the application process of the CSR projects seems to reach a satisfactory level for listed companies on the BIST 100 on a voluntary basis. However, the points to take into consideration are the availability of human rights and anti-corruption issues because this type of the CSR projects seems to be problematic for the selected corporations. Additionally, it can be useful to create a competent authority, which will be responsible for monitoring and supervising all the CSR projects. Discussion – When CSR is examined in the first place; it can be seen as a new burden that increases the costs for corporations. Additionally, defenders of the traditional economics theory accept CSR as violating obligation to shareholders and covering the wrongdoings of corporations. Yet, it also provides many advantages in terms of companies, financial markets and societies. The most important benefits of CSR can be listed as follows; it may increase the number of both national and international investors; thus, it makes positive contributions to the long-term profitability of a company; it may improve the quality of products, the brand value and competitive power of corporations by having a positive impact on the performance of employees; it also helps to protect environment, to care humanrights issues and to establish good relations with non-governmental organizations.