Search results

The digital revolution has substantially changed the business environment. Most banks have acknowledged the importance of new technologies to improve performance and client satisfaction. The development of these innovations has led to the entrance of the so-called Fintechs. This paper aims to evaluate the impact of these transformations on the performance of financial institutions and on their business model.

The authors use data envelopment analysis and Malmquist total productivity indices to measure financial institutions’ efficiency and their influence on strategy.

The main finding is that clients are more than ever at the core of banking strategy. The irrelevance of distance in basic banking transactions has reduced expenses and contributed to increasing revenues for all financial institutions. Banks will have a card to play in the advice they can bring to their clients.

This research could be of interest for financial managers who wish to re-examine their current business practices and imagine their business model for the future.

The contribution will be to further define the correlation between the provision of electronic banking services and its performance by including diversified institutions (conventional banks, Fintechs, Gafas) in the sample from multiple geographic zones to identify differences as regards their efficiency and business practices.

Since the 1980s, the global financial system has faced several crises that have led regulators to consider new conjectural and structural problems. These crises (new technology bubbles, the sub‐prime crisis …) have led economists and financial analysts to the following conclusions. First of all, systemic risk has increased during the last 30 years, which had led regulators to devise rules to evaluate information more efficiently. Second, the recent collapse of stock markets despite the national rescue measures shows the importance of preventative procedures. The third point is that aggressive capitalism has demonstrated its limits. The aim of this paper is to show that regulation is a necessary but not sufficient condition to ensure the efficiency of banking institutions, financial markets and the management of companies.

Through the analysis of the Swiss banking sector, the paper provides an insight for banks to satisfy social pressure on more ethical behavior. This case could be an example for another functioning for financial institutions.

By refocusing on their core business, banking institutions will be capable of realizing profit and creating value for the community.

The arguments discussed in this paper could be of interest both for professionals and academics willing to solve the antagonism between profit and ethics: profit can be compatible with social value added.

Banking and finance is not “an ethics free zone”. By changing their behavior, banks can improve their credibility on the market and renew the confidence towards clients.

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.

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.

The paper concludes that more ethical behaviour leads to both economic performance and social gains which increase wealth for all partners.

The proposed methodology could be extended to other European banking systems to discuss their implications as regards corporate social responsibility.

This contribution will help the reader to evaluate banking communication as regards corporate social responsibility in their daily activity.

This research will give an insight based on the documents published by banking institutions to measure their implication on corporate social responsibility.

This paper aims to explore how banks have modified their behaviours since the subprime crisis and their influence on credit access for SMEs.

This paper aims to explore how banks have modified their behaviours since the subprime crisis and their influence on credit access for SMEs.

We provide evidence that strategic orientations adopted by banks (both fragile and robust) are quite voluntary and not simply the result of following regulations. Unfortunately, these orientations have hampered SMEs' access to credit.

The core result of the paper is to emphasize that banking behaviours have considerably changed just after the subprime crisis and that SMEs have to deal with this new reality. These findings could be of interest for regulators and banking authorities to control liquidity constraints and guarantee both the stability of the global banking system and sustainable economic growth.

Using an original data reduction method and balance sheet analysis, this paper found evidence of key changes in banking behaviours during the subprime crisis.

Strategic decisions taken during financial instability periods are directly influenced by the competitive environment in which actors are evolving. In the highly financialized context in which they proceed, firms are moving in a half light. The rational expectations hypothesis no longer stands relevant when the information made available to actors is incomplete. The aim of this paper is to discuss how in such a situation, firms and banks interact using uncertain profit expectations, and then feed financial crises.

The paper pinpoints the key role played by a competitive environment on firms' and banks' strategic governance, by discussing a cognitive or experience linked expectations model. It then focuses on the free play of behavior in these enhanced competitive spaces.

Once admitted the irrelevancy of the rational expectations hypothesis, an optimal way of characterizing expectations under uncertainty is proposed. This solution helps to illustrate how the free play of banks and firms in today's enhanced competitive spaces generate systematic escalations on the markets.

Financial governance would gain more from being steered towards a more explicit consideration of speculative behaviors: the cognitive or experience linked expectations model proposed in this paper is a first attempt to discuss this question.

The aim of this paper is to show that there are other options for a firm (or a bank) than just following the mainstream logic of maximizing financial profits. This is the case of the so‐called “social banks”, which appeared in the mid‐1980s. Unlike the “financial green‐washing” of traditional banks, social banks have shown in their everyday practice that a bank can still be a competitive institution whilst committing wholeheartedly to the concept of sustainable development.

The analysis compares social banks to traditional universal banks at two levels: analysis of what they say, namely by looking at their annual report; and analysis of what they do, namely by looking at their activities as reflected in their balance sheet.

Concerning traditional banks, there is a major gap between what they say and what they do, whereas social banks are much more consistent in this regard. This is simply because social banks have put in place a different organization and different management structures and, overall, because they apply a different business model.

All banks are not the same. Beyond the “declarative ethics”, the methodology used in this paper helps to make the difference among them by using concrete evidence for measuring their “social added value”.

This paper aims to answer two questions: firstly, how does the mode of corporate governance evolve following a merger between two specific companies looking for a joint innovation policy? Secondly, what are the factors that guide decision makers towards choosing one governance model over another?

In order to answer these questions, this study focuses on two unlisted SMEs within the information and communication technology (ICT) sector, where joint innovation plays a key role. The authors studied the corporate governance decisions made during a strategic alliance between a small enterprise (called eStat) and a medium‐sized enterprise (called Médiamétrie), formed with a view to building a strategic partnership based on technological innovation. The method chosen to carry out this research involved a single case study based on passive observation (153 days of observation), participant observation, the conducting of 70 semi‐structured interviews and the analysis of internal documents such as the memorandum of understanding.

From a critical reading of the “standard” (disciplinary/shareholder, relating to process profitability issues in particular) and the “strategic” (the importance of human capital, relating to innovation issues in particular) approaches, the authors demonstrate how the managers of the newly‐created company (Médiamétrie‐eStat) gradually opted for a renewed, resource‐based corporate governance model.

Contrary to what underlies existing literature addressing corporate governance, this paper shows the need to consider the dynamics involved in the adoption of the corporate governance model when a merger deals with strategic innovation issues.

This paper aims to analyze how the level of adherence to sustainable development principles has evolved and also how the integration of new “good” governing rules has evolved in conjunction with the formation and functioning of the boards of directors and their committees.

The paper reports the results of a comparative case study – three French companies in the building sector – based on both primary and secondary data for the period 2002 to 2007.

It is found that the companies showed that they were capable of integrating sustainable development principles into their way of management; they also developed their rules of governance – in particular with regard to the constitution and the operating rules of their board of directors.

This study provides recent developments regarding sustainable development applied to company management, in the building sector in France. It also gives precise and recent information on the development of corporate governance rules.