IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/journl/hal-01380749.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Corporate responsibility in the banking sector: a proposed typology for the German case

Author

Listed:
  • Francesc Relano

    (ESCEM Tours Poitiers - ESCEM School of Business and Management - Groupe école supérieure de commerce et de management Tours-Poitiers)

  • Elisabeth Paulet

    (CEREFIGE - Centre Européen de Recherche en Economie Financière et Gestion des Entreprises - UL - Université de Lorraine, ESCEM Tours Poitiers - ESCEM School of Business and Management - Groupe école supérieure de commerce et de management Tours-Poitiers)

Abstract

Purpose – The aftermath of the subprime mortgage crisis has accelerated a pre‐existing process of ethical approach in the banking industry. Today, all banks claim to be socially, environmentally and economically committed with the philosophy of sustainable finance. The purpose of this paper is to show that, beyond the outward similarities, there are three different types of banking approach, each reflecting a distinct business model: banks whose ethical/social approach is mainly based on what they say, represented by universal banks; banks whose ethical/social approach is based on what they are, essentially the co‐operative banks; banks whose ethical/social approach is based on what they do, the so‐called ethical banks. Design/methodology/approach – The paper bases its argument on the German banking industry, which is a big European country with a fairly diversified banking sector. The paper examines three types of sources for each of the above‐mentioned categories of banks: the social and environmental reporting, the conformity or not with the principles of the social and solidarity‐based economy and the different types of financial activities as reflected in their balance sheet. Findings – The paper concludes that more ethical behaviour leads to both economic performance and social gains which increase wealth for all partners. Research limitations/implications – The proposed methodology could be extended to other European banking systems to discuss their implications as regards corporate social responsibility. Practical implications – This contribution will help the reader to evaluate banking communication as regards corporate social responsibility in their daily activity. Originality/value – This research will give an insight based on the documents published by banking institutions to measure their implication on corporate social responsibility.

Suggested Citation

  • Francesc Relano & Elisabeth Paulet, 2012. "Corporate responsibility in the banking sector: a proposed typology for the German case," Post-Print hal-01380749, HAL.
  • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-01380749
    DOI: 10.1108/17542431211264269
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Engy Mohsen El Hawary & Iman Mamdouh Arafa, 2018. "Studying the Effect of Stakeholders on the Disclosure of Corporate Social Responsibility by Banks: Evidence from Egypt," Accounting and Finance Research, Sciedu Press, vol. 7(4), pages 200-200, November.
    2. Sebastian Hoffmann, 2019. "The Euro in Historical Comparison to the Ruble and the Influence of Overconfidence," European Journal of Marketing and Economics Articles, Revistia Research and Publishing, vol. 2, May - Aug.
    3. Nek Kamal Bin Yeop Yunus & Mohamed Saif Rashid, 2019. "Knowledge Management Process as a Predictor on Organizational Performance in Dubai Government Departments," European Journal of Marketing and Economics Articles, Revistia Research and Publishing, vol. 2, January -.
    4. Stefania Veltri & Elena Cristiano & Olga Ferraro, 2023. "Examining the quality of the consolidated mandatory non‐financial statements of a cooperative banking group: A longitudinal analysis," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 30(4), pages 1573-1587, July.
    5. Jasman Tuyon & Okey Peter Onyia & Aidi Ahmi & Chia-Hsing Huang, 2023. "Sustainable financial services: reflection and future perspectives," Journal of Financial Services Marketing, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 28(4), pages 664-690, December.
    6. Nikolett Deutsch & Éva Pintér, 2018. "The Link between Corporate Social Responsibility and Financial Performance in the Hungarian Banking Sector in the Years Following the Global Crisis," Financial and Economic Review, Magyar Nemzeti Bank (Central Bank of Hungary), vol. 17(2), pages 124-145.
    7. Michał Jurek, 2014. "The genesis and evolution of CSR self-regulation with special refer-ence to the case of financial institutions," Working papers wpaper70, Financialisation, Economy, Society & Sustainable Development (FESSUD) Project.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-01380749. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.