Challenges of combining non-profit and commercial organisational forms: evidence from ethical banks

This paper examines internal and external challenges experienced by ethical banks, which combine multiple organisational forms in their simultaneous pursuit of economic profitability and social profitability. It features the global alliance for banking on values (GABV) and adopts a qualitative methodology based on interviews, participant observations and broad sources of secondary data. The research contributes to the existing literature on multiple form organisations and ethical banks by providing a detailed account of challenges brought up by their attempts to include social objectives alongside economic benefits. Evidence from this study suggests that democratic governance structures, models of ethical assessment of investments, accountability strategies and community relations techniques experience the greatest pressures in ethical banks.