Interpreting banks’ sustainability initiatives as reputational risk management and mechanisms for coping, re-embedding and rebuilding societal trust
Qualitative Research in Financial Markets
ISSN: 1755-4179
Article publication date: 2 September 2021
Issue publication date: 12 January 2022
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to contribute to a growing literature in sustainable and green banking by exploring the views of senior banking representatives towards the implementation of sustainability initiatives through extensive interview research. The authors explore the extent to which such initiatives are embedded within the banking industry, whether they represent risk management mechanisms and whether they are imbued with reputational risk management rather than a genuine response to ethical societal concerns.
Design/methodology/approach
Qualitative semi-structured interviews were conducted with UK bank managers. The interviewees’ utterances are interpreted through a sociological theoretical lens derived from the study of Giddens and Beck, allowing us to conclude that external initiatives such as the Equator Principles seem to be adopted as re-embedding mechanisms that can rebuild societal trust, as well as representing mechanisms of reputational risk management.
Findings
The analysis suggested that internal sustainability initiatives were interpreted as coping mechanisms whereby bank employees can recreate their protective cocoon, reinstating their ontological security in response to the high consequence risks of climate change and other related systemic factors that create overwhelming feelings of engulfment.
Originality/value
Using Beck’s risk society theory as a theoretical lens through which to interpret the interview data allows a number of concluding comments and suggestions to be made. The findings resonate with earlier research into institutional investors’ attitudes towards climate change that found their engagement and dialogue with companies around climate change issues to be imbued with a risk discourse: their initiatives and actions were dominated by risk management motivations.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors especially wish to thank the participants to the following conferences for their comments and contributions on earlier drafts of this paper: 11th International Critical Management Studies Conference, Open University, UK, 2019; AFM Research Workshop, The Mowbray, University of Sheffield, 29th November 2018; and British Accounting and Finance Association (BAFA) Conference, Corporate Governance SIG, University of Sheffield, 5th June 2018.
Citation
Saeudy, M., Atkins, J. and Barone, E.A.V. (2022), "Interpreting banks’ sustainability initiatives as reputational risk management and mechanisms for coping, re-embedding and rebuilding societal trust", Qualitative Research in Financial Markets, Vol. 14 No. 1, pp. 169-188. https://doi.org/10.1108/QRFM-02-2021-0024
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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