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Bankers Bashing Back: Amoral CSR Justifications

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Abstract

The finance industry is required to respond to public criticism of perceived immoral behaviour. To create legitimacy, financial firms not only undertake corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities, but also support such activities with precise justifications. In this paper, we study CSR justifications appearing in annual and sustainability reports from the Swedish finance industry. Our objective is to investigate the ethical character of CSR justifications in the finance industry. This is an interesting topic, both because CSR carries ethical meaning and because CSR justifications play a role in actual business activities. A secondary aim of this article is to test whether decoupled corporate claims about CSR can be recoupled, which would potentially help companies to act responsibly. The observed CSR justifications avoided the fundamental question of whether the finance industry does in fact have responsibilities, and they did not manifest awareness of stakeholders’ demands for CSR. Seemingly value-based CSR activities often lacked ethical justifications. These characteristics do not harmonize with the responsible image that the contemporary finance industry wants to portray. Our counterintuitive finding is that amorality prevails in the justifications that banks give for undertaking CSR activities.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Organisational and Worklife Ethics, Ersta Sköndal University College, Box 11189, 100 61, Stockholm, Sweden

    Peter Norberg

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  1. Peter Norberg
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Correspondence to Peter Norberg.

Appendices

Appendix 1: Members of Nasdaq Stockholm at 1st Jan 2015

Aktieinvest FK AB

Avanza Bank AB

Carnegie Investment Bank AB

Erik Penser Bankaktiebolag

E. Öhman J: or Capital AB

Humle Kapitalförvaltning AB

Länsförsäkringar Bank AB

Mangold Fondkommission AB

Neonet Securities AB

Nordea Bank AB (publ)

Nordnet Bank AB

Pareto Securities AB

Remium Nordic AB

SkandiaBanken AB

SEB Wealth Management

Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken AB

Sedemera Fondkommission

Sparbanken Öresund AB

Swedbank AB

Svenska Handelsbanken AB

Appendix 2: Empirical Findings

  

Source

Internal motives

“Cohesion, uniting our people”

Carnegie Holding (2008) and (2013)

“SEB:s continued success”

SEB (2013)

“Internal guidelines indicate”

Skandiabanken Aktiebolag (publ) (2013)

“Long-term value growth”

Svenska Handelsbanken Aktiebolag (publ) (2013)

Legitimacy

“Good reputation, trust and responsible business practice”

Nordea (2009)

“Management of the risks and opportunities associated with our reputation”

Nordea (2009)

“One of Handelsbanken’s main assets is the trust that the bank receives”

Svenska Handelsbanken Aktiebolag (publ) (2010, 2011, 2012, 2013)

“Important that business decisions in the bank can be justified”

Svenska Handelsbanken Aktiebolag (publ) (2008, 2009)

Value for stakeholders

“Value generation for our stakeholders”

Avanza Bank Holding (2013)

“Good for our customers, our employees, the environment and society in general”

Nordnet (2013)

“To enable the Bank’s stakeholders to achieve their ambitions”

SEB (2013)

“By being profitable, the Bank may create and distribute a direct economic value”

SEB (2012)

“Without a long-term environmental and social development there is also no long-term economic development.”

Swedbank Aktiebolag (publ) (2009)

“To regularly be generous with other people’s money is a cheap way to acquire a reputation for magnanimity”

Svenska Handelsbanken Aktiebolag (publ) (2005)

“Reputation is crucial if we are to increase shareholder value”

Nordea (2009)

Corporate citizenship

“Aims to be a responsible corporate citizen”

Svenska Handelsbanken Aktiebolag (publ) (2013)

“The objective of sustainability efforts is to/ … /contribute to the communities in which SEB operates”

SEB (2013)

“We must keep our promises and earn our customers and our place in society”

Skandiabanken Aktiebolag (publ) (2013, 10; 2014)

“Only if the communities in which we operate fare well, we will ultimately fare well”

Swedbank Aktiebolag (publ) (2013)

Naturalization

“Respect for the environment is an integral part in Skandia’s sustainability efforts”

Skandiabanken Aktiebolag (publ) (2014)

“It is therefore natural for the bank to work with sustainability issues”

Svenska Handelsbanken Aktiebolag (publ) (2013)

“Sustainability is not a project but an integral part”

SEB (2015a, b)

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Norberg, P. Bankers Bashing Back: Amoral CSR Justifications. J Bus Ethics 147, 401–418 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-015-2965-x

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