Coalitions and Public Action in the Reshaping of Corporate Responsibility: The Case of the Retail Banking Industry

This paper addresses the question of whether and how public action via civil society and/or government can meaningfully shape industry-wide corporate responsibility (ICR) behaviour. We explore how, in principle, ICR can come about and what conditions might be effective in promoting more ethical beha...

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Detalhes bibliográficos
Autores: Cuesta González, Marta María de la, Froud, Julie, Tischer, Daniel
Tipo de documento: artigo
Data de publicação:2021
País:España
Recursos:Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia
Repositório:e-spacio. Repositorio Institucional de la UNED
Idioma:inglês
OAI Identifier:oai:e-spacio.uned.es:20.500.14468/24466
Acesso em linha:https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14468/24466
Access Level:Acceso aberto
Palavra-chave:53 Ciencias Económicas
Corporate responsibility
Industry corporate responsibility
Business ethics
Retail banking
Stakeholder negotiation
Bank business model
Financial services
Spain
UK
Descrição
Resumo:This paper addresses the question of whether and how public action via civil society and/or government can meaningfully shape industry-wide corporate responsibility (ICR) behaviour. We explore how, in principle, ICR can come about and what conditions might be effective in promoting more ethical behaviour. We propose a framework to understand attempts to develop more responsible behaviour at an industry level through processes of negotiation and coalition building. We suggest that any attempt to meaningfully influence ICR would require stakeholders to possess both power and legitimacy; moreover, magnitude and urgency of the issue at stake may affect the ability to influence ICR. The framework is applied to the retail banking industry, focusing on post-crisis experiences in two countries—Spain and the UK—where there has been considerable pressure on the retail banking industry by civil society and/or government to change behaviours, especially to abandon unethical practices. We illustrate in this paper how corporate responsibility at the sector level in retail banking is the product of context-specific processes of negotiation between civil society and public authorities, on behalf of customers and other stakeholders, drawing on legal and other institutions to influence industry behaviour.