Korean companies increasingly recognize the necessity; the importance of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) surges despite it short history; and CSR is now regarded as the essential management strategies for successful corporate management. Recently, Global Standard was developed andannounced publicly; and an increase of socially responsible finance has increased the need of sustainable information. In the same context, the sustainable management of banks is under activediscussion.
As for Korea's financial markets, economic recession drags out since the IMF financial crisis, incurring massive credit delinquents and the instability in the labor market. During this process, the instability of a financial system, a lack of corporate innovation, and especially the deepened polarization of poverty can be associate with the crisis of capitalism; the incomplete redistribution between income and wealth and noticeable slump in the labor market such as employment and business startup provoked the questions about the sustainability of market economy.
Under the circumstance where the credibility of financial institutions declined in this manner, the banking industry has the challenges to carry out strategic and organizational social responsibility and to satisfy many different stakeholders.
Thus, Korean banks have struggled to carry out corporate social responsibilities in order to meet the needs of the times. However, someresearches reveal the public opinion is not in favor of a financial industry despite of increasing Korean banks' expenditure on social contribution and their social activities as social dimension. In fact, banking industry's social activities as a part of the efforts for its social responsibility was not effective in enhancing their image. Thus, more fruitful social responsibility strategy is needed to respect more fundamental values and fulfill them.
This study focuses more on the corporate internal CSR aiming at the social contribution by complying with economic and legal responsibility rather than the implementation of CSR strategically and externally. Firstly, this study explored the background of CSR and the need of social responsibility in banking industry. Next, the study discussed the present situation of banks’ social responsibilities, dividing that into the internal responsibilities corresponding to fundamental ethics and the external responsibilities corresponding to positive ethics. For comparative study, this study used the analytic frameworks as below are set out, linking the social responsibilities in each step suggested in Carroll's model with responding GRI guideline. As a result, the external responsibilities implemented more strategically have been implemented in various ways, whereas the implementation of the internal responsibilities, the fundamental management ethics, has been inadequate.
In order for the social responsibility activities of banks to bear fruits, banks need to make further efforts as follows;
First, developing and expanding the current social contribution activities is important, yet what is the most important is the inside of companies needs to be awakened and prepare the plans for the improvement in a dimension of social responsibilities. Second, the mindset recognizing donation, social service, and corporate philanthropic activities as social responsibility activities needs to be improved. Third, the development to 'Social Investing' which is the investment on both social issues and economic growth by shifting the concept of social responsibilities from expenditure to investment is important. Lastly, enhancing corporate consciousness of voluntary social responsibility management is important.