Islamic Approach to Corporate Social Responsibility in Scientific Research with CSR Overview in Banking Sector of Bosnia and Herzegovina

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) as a social approach to business organization has been the subject of scientific research since 1953 when Howard Bowen published “Social Responsibilities of the Businessman.” In this conventional approach to CSR, this concept has a voluntary character because it can be observed as an expense, as a marketing activity, or as an activity that creates an added value for a business organization. Contrary to conventional approach of CSR, the Islamic approach implies that CSR is an integral part of Sharia because the emphasis of the Islamic economy is social welfare, which implies that Islamic financial institutions are also the bearers of this process. However, the question that arises is how much the Islamic approach to CSR is present in scientific research? The aim of this paper is to explore to what extent is this area represented in the research by scholars and practitioners. The research uses the Scopus and Web of Science (WoS) index databases for the period 1990–2017. This “bibliometric” approach is widely used in many fields and can be an indicator of the development direction of a certain area. Bosnia and Herzegovina, as a case, show to have CSR activities in conventional banks and Islamic bank with some specifics which cannot be found in conventional institutions. However, our results reveal that causes of insufficient research in this area on a global scale could be that Islamic financial institutions and Islamic Scholars are observing corporate social responsibility as a part of Sharia and not as a separate entity. The suggestion is that more empirical research needs to be done in this field to fill the identified gaps