The online presence of Turkish banks: Communicating the softer side of corporate identity

•Turkish banks highlight their softer, socially responsible identities online.•Public banks construct identities via core banking functions and extensive impact.•Private banks accentuate superiority, ethics, future orientation, extensive impact.•Private banks stress a socially responsible identity to gain legitimacy.

This study tries to understand the process of organizational identity construction and the role of public relations in assisting this process. This study focuses on Turkey's banking sector to understand how organizational identities are constructed and supported by corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities in addition to how they are communicated to stakeholders. The corporate websites and social media accounts (Facebook and Twitter) of the eight largest banks in Turkey are examined through thematic content analysis to understand their identity construction processes and how much they benefit from CSR activities in this process. Institutional theory is utilized in this study to get a deeper understanding of the role of CSR in organizational identity construction. The results reveal that online presence of banks in Turkey tends to emphasize the softer, especially socially responsible side of their organizational identities.