IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/znwudp/316457.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Reluctant transformers: The institutional logics of German savings banks climate finance

Author

Listed:
  • Klüh, Ulrich
  • Naji, Ilias

Abstract

What defines the role of public savings banks("Sparkassen") in tackling the socio-ecological challenges related to planetary boundaries, such as climate change and loss of biodiversity? A clear answer to this question is still lacking, in spite of that fact that the German Sparkassen have recently become more ambitious with respect to their role in the sustainability transformation. Taking these recent developments into account, we provide a qualitative empirical analysis of the institutional logics that shape the savings banks' response to repeated calls to deepen their involvement in ecological sustainability efforts. We argue that the lack of transformative potential that many observers have criticized is due to a specific combination of institutional logics, that emphasize compliance, competitiveness and controlling activities. Moreover, savings banks appear to be following a strategy of conservative transformation, consistent with the approaches they have followed in recent decades, to survive in a climate hostile to public ownership of financial institutions and relationship banking. We observe tendencies to make climate finance a vehicle to become relationship-orientated again, and identify the obstacles standing in the way of such a twist.

Suggested Citation

  • Klüh, Ulrich & Naji, Ilias, 2025. "Reluctant transformers: The institutional logics of German savings banks climate finance," ZNWU Discussion Papers 15, Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences, Darmstadt Business School, Center for Sustainable Economic and Corporate Policy (SECP).
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:znwudp:316457
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/316457/1/1925139573.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fred Block, 2014. "Democratizing Finance," Politics & Society, , vol. 42(1), pages 3-28, March.
    2. Ugo Panizza, 2023. "State-owned commercial banks," Journal of Economic Policy Reform, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 26(1), pages 44-66, January.
    3. Christoph Scherrer (ed.), 2017. "Public Banks in the Age of Financialization," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 17305.
    4. Michael Schwan, 2021. "Weathering the Storm? Financialisation and German Savings Banks," New Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 26(3), pages 422-438, May.
    5. Benston, George J, 1972. "Savings Banking and the Public Interest," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 4(1), pages 133-226, Part II F.
    6. Reinhard H. Schmidt, 2009. "The Political Debate about Savings Banks," Schmalenbach Business Review (sbr), LMU Munich School of Management, vol. 61(4), pages 366-392, October.
    7. Corbet, Shaen & Larkin, Charles, 2022. "The effects of German economic and political progress on the Sparkassen savings bank system," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    8. Joe LaBriola, 2019. "Risky Business: Institutional Logics and Risk Taking at Large U.S. Commercial Banks," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 100(1), pages 389-404, February.
    9. Vitols, Sigurt, 2004. "Changes in Germany's bank-based financial system: A varieties of capitalism perspective," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Institutions, States, Markets SP II 2004-03, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    10. Pietro Alessandrini & Andrea F. Presbitero & Alberto Zazzaro, 2009. "Global banking and local markets: a national perspective," Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 2(2), pages 173-192.
    11. Thomas Marois, 2022. "A Dynamic Theory of Public Banks (and Why it Matters)," Review of Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(2), pages 356-371, April.
    12. Durand , Rodolphe & Szostak , Bérangère & Jourdan , Julien & Thornton , Patricia, 2013. "Institutional Logics as Strategic Resources," HEC Research Papers Series 1004, HEC Paris.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Sabine Dörry & Christian Schulz, 2024. "Creating Low‐Carbon Economies: Probing Transition Dynamics through the Lens of Field Theory," Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG, vol. 115(5), pages 660-673, December.
    2. Franz Flögel & Stefan Gärtner, 2020. "The COVID‐19 Pandemic and Relationship Banking in Germany: Will Regional Banks Cushion an Economic Decline or is A Banking Crisis Looming?," Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG, vol. 111(3), pages 416-433, July.
    3. Flögel Franz & Schepelmann Philipp & Zademach Hans-Martin & Zörner Michael, 2024. "Injecting climate finance into SME lending in Germany: Opportunities for and limitations of regional savings and cooperative banks," ZFW – Advances in Economic Geography, De Gruyter, vol. 68(2), pages 111-123.
    4. Franz Flögel & Marius Beckamp, 2020. "Will FinTech make regional banks superfluous for small firm finance? Observations from soft information‐based lending in Germany," Economic Notes, Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA, vol. 49(2), July.
    5. Ali Rıza Güngen, 2023. "New Multilateral Development Banks and Green Lending: Approaching Scalar Complexities in the Global South," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 54(2), pages 251-279, March.
    6. Bellucci, Andrea & Borisov, Alexander & Zazzaro, Alberto, 2013. "Do banks price discriminate spatially? Evidence from small business lending in local credit markets," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(11), pages 4183-4197.
    7. Alberto Montagnoli & Oreste Napolitano & Boriss Siliverstovs, 2016. "Regional Interest Rate Pass-Through in Italy," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 50(8), pages 1404-1419, August.
    8. Neil Lee & Davide Luca, 2019. "The big-city bias in access to finance: evidence from firm perceptions in almost 100 countries," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 19(1), pages 199-224.
    9. Panizza, Ugo, 2024. "Bank ownership around the world," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 166(C).
    10. Jehle, Geoffrey, 1984. "Individual Welfare and the Demand for Financial Instruments," MPRA Paper 73410, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Mark K. Cassell & Michael Schwan & Marc Schneiberg, 2023. "Bank Types, Inclusivity, and Paycheck Protection Program Lending During COVID-19," Economic Development Quarterly, , vol. 37(3), pages 277-294, August.
    12. Gemzik-Salwach Agata & Perz Paweł, 2018. "Financialization in the Regional Aspect. An Attempt to Measure a Phenomenon," Central European Economic Journal, Sciendo, vol. 5(52), pages 56-66, January.
    13. Flögel, Franz, 2016. "Distance and Modern Banks' Lending to SMEs: Decentralised versus Centralised Banking in Germany," IAT Discussion Papers 16/01, Institut Arbeit und Technik (IAT), Westfälische Hochschule, University of Applied Sciences.
    14. Rasim Serdar Kurdoglu, 2020. "The Mirage of Procedural Justice and the Primacy of Interactional Justice in Organizations," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 167(3), pages 495-512, December.
    15. Malcom Sawyer, 2021. "Beyond social democracy and neo-liberalism: Towards a social economy," PSL Quarterly Review, Economia civile, vol. 74(299), pages 287-306.
    16. Francesco Fasano & Maurizio Rocca, 2024. "Local versus national banking development in Europe: who is the winner?," Eurasian Business Review, Springer;Eurasia Business and Economics Society, vol. 14(1), pages 227-256, March.
    17. Aziz Ariwibowo & Adi Afiff & Riani Rachmawati & Ratih Kusumastuti, 2024. "The impact of boundary spanning activities and resource orchestration in improving performance of Indonesian state-owned bank branches," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 11(1), pages 1-12, December.
    18. De Haas, Ralph & Guriev, Sergei & Stepanov, Alexander, 2025. "State ownership and corporate leverage around the world," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    19. Francesco Marchionne & Alberto Zazzaro, 2018. "Risk and competitiveness in the Italian banking sector," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 38(1), pages 271-280.
    20. Franz Flögel, 2018. "Distance and Modern Banks’ Lending to SMEs: Ethnographic Insights from a Comparison of Regional and Large Banks in Germany," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 18(1), pages 35-57.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • B15 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought through 1925 - - - Historical; Institutional; Evolutionary
    • B25 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought since 1925 - - - Historical; Institutional; Evolutionary; Austrian; Stockholm School
    • B26 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought since 1925 - - - Financial Economics
    • B52 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - Current Heterodox Approaches - - - Historical; Institutional; Evolutionary; Modern Monetary Theory;
    • E02 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General - - - Institutions and the Macroeconomy
    • E58 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Central Banks and Their Policies
    • N2 - Economic History - - Financial Markets and Institutions

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:zbw:znwudp:316457. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/znwdade.html .

    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.