Abstract

Global corporate misgovernance, irresponsibility, and bankruptcy, over the last two decades continue to stimulate empirical research on how corporate social responsibility (CSR) mediates the cause-and-effect relationship between corporate governance (CG) and corporate profitability (CP). In the context of British Commercial Banks, the exact nature of the mediating effects of CSR on governance-profitability relationship remains ambivalent and under researched. This paper, therefore, aims to clarify the relationship between CG, CSR, and CP, by conducting a systematic review of Agency, Stewardship, Shareholders, Resource-dependency, Institutional, and Stakeholders theories, and critically evaluating the results and findings of 29 prior studies on CG, CSR and CP. We identify 15 common measures for future research: five for CG (board leadership, responsibilities, composition, internal controls, remuneration), five for CP (ROA, ROE, Tobin’s Q, share price, market share), and five for CSR (collaboration, institutions, education, climate action, responsible production) across British Commercial Banks. We make significant contribution to knowledge by embedding the 15 measures in the development of a holistic and integrated conceptual framework to underpin a future research agenda. The continuing relevance and implications for commercial bank-specific CG development, Board leadership in the pursuit of profitability, and social responsibility simultaneously are also discussed.