Integration of Environmental, Social and Governance (Esg) Criteria in the Credit Risk Analysis of Smes: A Qualitative Study Among Banking Professionals

The paper tries to shed light on the following research question: how do credit professionals collectively construct the meaning and place of ESG criteria in their risk assessment practices, and what tensions does this process generate within their daily activity? This research aims to make three main contributions. Firstly, on the empirical level, we document in a detailed manner the themes structuring the discourse of credit analysts on ESGperceived importance, obstacles encountered, organizational influences, decision-making dilemmasthus enriching an academic corpus still largely dominated by macroeconomic quantitative approaches. Our qualitative approach attempts to capture the nuances, contradictions and learning processes that escape questionnaire surveys. Secondly, on the theoretical level, we try to shed light on the mechanisms by which a new institutional logic (the logic of sustainability) tries to institutionalize itself within an organizational field (retail banking) historically structured by a dominant financial logic. Thirdly, at the managerial level, we seek to identify the organizational, cultural and technical conditions that promote or hinder a sincere (rather than cosmetic) integration of ESG criteria into credit decisions, thus offering concrete courses of action for banking departments, regulators and stakeholders in supporting SMEs.