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Corporate Governance in Banking and Investor Protection pp 235–253Cite as

Inside the Board of Spanish Saving Banks

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Part of the book series: CSR, Sustainability, Ethics & Governance ((CSEG))

Abstract

The chapter presents the first in-depth descriptive analysis of the Spanish Saving Banks’ boards in terms of size, independence, and quality (knowledge, experience and diversity). We build an original handmade database with the biographical profile of 1525 different directors for the entire population of Spanish savings banks during the period of 2004–2010. Our results show that on average, their board was larger with less knowledge in business and less professional experience in banking but more gender diversity than the private banks analyzed in other studies. These board characteristics barely changed during the period of crisis. We also find that 52% of board members are designated by governments or affiliated with political parties. This figure seems to confirm that although the Spanish savings banks had the status of private entities, the real fact is that they were primarily controlled by politicians. Finally, we show several important differences in the board composition, depending on the savings banks’ financial characteristics.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Autonoma University of Madrid, Madrid, Spain

    Pablo de Andrés & Iñigo García-Rodríguez

  2. University of Burgos, Burgos, Spain

    M. Elena Romero-Merino & Marcos Santamaría-Mariscal

Authors
  1. Pablo de Andrés
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  2. Iñigo García-Rodríguez
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  3. M. Elena Romero-Merino
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  4. Marcos Santamaría-Mariscal
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Marcos Santamaría-Mariscal .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Business Administration, University of Cantabria, Santander, Spain

    Belén Díaz Díaz

  2. Guildhall Faculty of Business and Law, London Metropolitan University, London, United Kingdom

    Samuel O. Idowu

  3. College of Business Administration, University of Sharjah, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates

    Philip Molyneux

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de Andrés, P., García-Rodríguez, I., Romero-Merino, M.E., Santamaría-Mariscal, M. (2018). Inside the Board of Spanish Saving Banks. In: Díaz Díaz, B., Idowu, S., Molyneux, P. (eds) Corporate Governance in Banking and Investor Protection. CSR, Sustainability, Ethics & Governance. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70007-6_11

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