Determinants of bank social responsibility: case of Croatia

Loading...
Thumbnail Image
Date
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Technická Univerzita v Liberci
Technical university of Liberec, Czech Republic
Abstract
Recently fi nancial sector and its responsibilities have come under great scrutiny. This has led to putting more emphasis on social responsibility of fi nancial institutions, primarily banks, due to their powerful and infl uential position. Banks have an impact not only on fi nancial and economic system, but on a wider community as well. Their socially responsible practices in particular may have important social implications, what is even more emphasized within bank-centric fi nancial systems, typical of CEE countries. Due to a lack of existing research, the aim of the paper is to assess social responsibility of banks at individual and industry level in a specifi c CEE context. At bank individual level, focus is put on factors of bank size, ownership status and fi nancial performance, while at the bank industry level the structure of granted loans is included in the analysis. The framework for assessing bank social responsibility is derived and adapted from previous research conducted by Cuesta-Gonzalez, et al. [23] and Scholtens [81]. It is applied to Croatian banking sector, while the level of social responsibility is empirically related to factors at bank individual and industry level. Research fi ndings offer an overview of social responsibility of Croatian banks. The results demonstrate that bank social responsibility is related to factors of bank size and ownership status at the individual level, and to the structure of granted loans at the industry level. However, the nature of the link between bank social and fi nancial performance did not prove signifi cant. Such findings offer a wider lesson of what factors are associated with social performance of fi nancial sector. Additionally, they may serve as a useful reference point for further investigation of socially responsible practices in Croatia and other CEE countries.
Description
Subject(s)
internationalization, export motives, entry modes, Polish exporters
Citation
ISSN
12123609
ISBN
Collections