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The aim of this paper is to explore the affective and cognitive factors that condition banking relationships for economically vulnerable consumers and how these factors contribute to increasing financial difficulties and exclusion. This research, performed on a set of focus groups, bases its findings on a combination of experimental and discourse analysis methods.

Financial decisions are not rational and can be biased by affective and cognitive factors. Behavioural finance has focused very little on analysing how consumer biases influence relationships with banking institutions. Additionally, these relationships are affected by the digitalization and transformation of banking business. Thus, in the case of economically vulnerable consumers, who are not profitable for the increasingly competitive banking industry and lack financial abilities, their risk of financial exclusion is increasing.

The results show that distrust and shame lead to financial difficulties in economically vulnerable consumers. Distrust generates problems of access and self-exclusion, while shame generates difficulties of use. This lack of trust makes them more rational when dealing with machines than with people, showing greater banking difficulties for consumers with a “person-suspicious” profile.

This finding can help regulators establish limits on banking behaviour, require banks to incorporate affective and cognitive factors in their convenience tests and detect new variables that can help them improve their insolvency ratios and reputations.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically appraise the health of banking systems by applying a new theoretical framework based on resilience and stability simultaneously. In line with complex system theories, the authors will consider the dynamics of the banking system as a whole, analysing not only banks individually but also the broad environment in which they operate. For doing so, the authors propose a composite indicator (CI) for analysing the resilience and stability of banking systems of developed countries. The main purpose of the indicator is not to make predictions on future banks’ behaviour, but rather to use it as a tool for appraising the overall health of the most salient banking systems.

The authors have designed a theoretical framework of resilience and stability taking into account the review of previous literature. The authors have identified the main factors underlying these two concepts that can be appraised as complementary targets. The authors have applied multiple factor analyses to identify the main determinants of banks’ resilience and stability, and the authors have constructed a CI giving different weights to the relevant dimensions previously identified. The authors have tried different model specification and the authors have chosen the simplest model that render better empirical results. The authors construct the resilience and stability indicator for the group of G7 countries, Spain and Portugal, from 2004 up to 2015.

First, resilience–stability indicators for the group of countries analysed reveal quite different patterns in the aftermath of the financial crises. While some countries have improved its relative position within the ranking, the authors find others evolving just in the opposite direction. Second, the relative position of countries in terms of the resilience–stability indicator allows the authors to identify Canada and the USA as examples of best practices. Third, by analysing countries individually the authors will be better able to identify potential weakness and areas for improvement in each case.

The evolution of the resilience and stability indicator will serve as an early warning system for policy makers and supervisors in identifying signs of weakness, as well as a useful tool to identify the best practices. Furthermore, this indicator will allow to better assessing the potential vulnerability of banking systems in the advent of a forthcoming crisis. Therefore, this measurement should not be interpreted as an absolute value but as a warning signal of potential weakness in each case.

The main contribution of this paper to the existing literature is that it introduces a new reconceptualization of the health of the banking system in line with complex theories. The theoretical background is based on a comprehensive framework of resilience and stability as complementary targets. The CI summarises into a single figure a multidimensional concept like resilience and stability. The variables that the authors have used for the construction of the indicator have been validated by applying multiple factor analysis. The authors have empirically appraise the resilience and stability of a group of advanced economies that encompass the group of the more developed countries in the world and the two European cases that have receive financial support in order to see if there are remarkable differences.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the emerging discourse on corporate taxation from a corporate social responsibility perspective to develop a consensual definition of corporate tax responsibility (CTR) and to identify a set of indicators that firms should publicly communicate to their stakeholders as an accountability mechanism.

Data were obtained from semi-structured interviews with representatives of stakeholders closely related to taxation: tax authorities, companies, NGOs, tax advisors and academics. Based on a discourse analysis approach, data were coded and analyzed using computer-assisted qualitative data analysis software.

CTR is defined as the set of tax-related practices and policies that allow companies to pay a fair share of taxes as a function of the generated value in each jurisdiction in which they operate and to then publicly disclose them. Disclosure should cover disaggregated quantitative data and information on practices and policies.

Despite the wealth of research on sustainability reporting and increasing public awareness of tax aggressiveness and disclosure, academic research has not explored tax-responsible reporting. Moreover, no consensual definition of CTR has been formulated, and no indicators to properly account for responsible taxation have been identified. This paper contributes to filling these gaps by providing rich interview evidence regarding the nature of the emerging discourse on CTR reporting and a set of material indicators for CTR disclosure. This paper encourages researchers to foster the development of social accountability by engaging in future empirical studies of CTR.