The Model of Social Responsibility of Islamic Banks

Abstract

Islamic banks, in addition to their "specialized duties", also have "social responsibilities". In economic and managerial literature, this is interpreted as "Corporate Social Responsibility" (CSR), which is a set of benevolent duties arising from the divine and voluntary will that has been determined in the structure of serving the Islamic and human community for Islamic banks. In the Islamic perspective, the responsibility of banks goes beyond the level of shareholder profitability and encompasses the realm of public interest and welfare. Welfare includes both worldly interests and salvation in the hereafter. The origin of these "social responsibilities" is the will of God, from which only wise matters arise. This research aims to present a "model of social responsibility" for Islamic banks. The proposed model consists of structures and variables: the "independent variable" such as governance of ethical and religious values, institutional factors, and economic motivations; the "moderating variable" such as education and awareness of Islamic bank managers, technological and technical factors, compliance with regulations and laws of the Islamic government, the proximity of Islamic banks' location, and convenience for customers; and the "mediating variable" such as market factors (banking products and services), media coverage (advertising), economic-political factors (economic institutions), cultural-social factors (effective cultural-social institutions), international factors (civil society institutions). The "dependent variable" is the social responsibility of Islamic banks. Data analysis was performed using both quantitative and qualitative methods, and the study population is Afghan banks. For fitting the conceptual model of research and investigating the main hypotheses of the research, the structural equation modeling (SEM) method by software (SMART PLS3) has been used, and the research findings indicate that there is a significant relationship between all research variables.