Corporate social responsibility rhetoric and legitimacy in Indonesian Islamic banking

The future of the Indonesian Islamic bank industry is promising; however, its market share is still small. Islamic banks should strive to be accepted by stakeholders to acquire organizational legitimacy. Therefore, the impact of banks' activities on society's welfare is a significant concern. To get attention, comprehension, and conviction from stakeholders, banks should communicate their corporate social responsibilities (CSR) activities to stakeholders. Consequently, CSR rhetoric is essential. Previous studies have been conducted in the Western setting, none in the Indonesian Islamic banking context. The primary question of this research is how CSR rhetoric can be used to achieve legitimacy in the Indonesian Islamic banking context. The study uses an Islamic perspective and employs qualitative case study. This was done by investigating the two biggest Indonesian Islamic banks, Bank Syariah Mandiri and Bank Muamalat Indonesia. Data collection was conducted by interviewing six managers in charge of this issue and by collecting documents. Data analysis was carried out by categorizing the codes that emerge from interview transcription and written documents by employing Atlas.ti 7 application. Subsequently, categories and sub-categories are logically connected to make a plausible explanation. To enhance trustworthiness, this study employs purposive sampling, triangulation, and peer review. As a result, this study (1) reveals the concept of Shariah legitimacy of the Indonesian Islamic bank, (2) offers a new Islamic CSR definition, and (3) explains how rhetoric CSR can enhance Shariah legitimacy. This study contributes to the study of CSR rhetoric. Theoretically, it introduces the term Shariah legitimacy and provides a new definition of Islamic CSR. Practically, it offers CSR rhetoric strategies to achieve Shariah legitimacy. Through these strategies, Islamic banks can strengthen their existence and expand their market share. Methodologically, unlike previous studies, it uses interpretivism paradigm. For future research, this study can be expanded to other Islamic banks, replicated to different contexts, involve more cases to gain more insights, expanded further to develop quantitative evaluation criteria, and extended by investigating stakeholders' perspectives.