Cultural dimensions, Global Reporting Initiatives commitment, and corporate social responsibility issues. New evidence from Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development banks

This paper aims to examine the effect of cultural dimensions such as the power distance, individualism, masculinity, uncertainty avoidance, long-term orientation, and indulgence on the GRI commitment effect of corporate social responsibility reports by the OECD banks. Adopting the stakeholder theory and the Hofstede’s Cultural Dimension, we investigated the Global Reporting Initiatives (GRI) commitment level and its determinants, using a sample of 819 firm-year observations from 2012 to 2018 belonging to 27 countries. Thus, we collected data from BvD BankFocus database, selecting 180 OECD banks. Applying a statistical regression analysis, our findings show a significant influence of masculinity, uncertainty avoidance, long-term orientation, and indulgence on the GRI commitment level in the context of corporate social responsibility (CSR). Additionally, our results highlight the effect of cultural dimensions of countries in the application of the GRI guidelines and investigate the reasons for this different commitment effect. Results of this paper are directed to academic community, practitioners and policymakers as theoretical and practical advances.