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This research presents a technology roadmap for social banking in Iran. Technology roadmapping is a tool for decisionmakers to identify, assess and choose between different strategic options to achieve the best technological objectives and help companies and industries to better understand their market and technological choices. As social banking is in its infancy, it could embody different aspects. Therefore, to be successful in field of social banking, banks should define specific capabilities based on their capacities to create their own model. A social banking roadmap provides a comprehensive plan for banks to design products and services based on their capacities and create required programs for their implementation and improvement.

This paper outlines the steps for creating a technology roadmap to develop social banking services of one of Iran’s private banks. Different methods were used to implement each step mainly based on expert panels and carrying out polling and survey research among banking and IT experts.

Technology roadmaps pay special attention to the challenges and the level of capabilities (both technical and social) to develop technologies and services specially for developing countries. The level of capabilities and absorptive capacity will determine the direction of technology development. Hence, banks should design their business plan and roadmap based on their background and capabilities, state of market, their status and goals. Policymakers should help increase cooperation, financial transparency, information and payments security via appropriate legislations.

The number of banks that have entered the social banking field is limited, and as a result, activities that have been carried out in this area in the country are limited too. Therefore, there was limited access to information as well as related studies. This research has tried to extract all the contents of the roadmap. Some sub-topics such as technologies have been dealt with to a lesser depth because of the complexity in identifying and assigning each of technologies to the service features. The technology roadmap experiences in the country are limited, and it was not possible to study the existing roadmaps with regard to their confidentiality. Developing a technology roadmap requires using expert panels and conducting multiple workshops with stakeholders from private sectors, universities and industries. In this research, because of low resources, the panels were confronted with limited continuous attendance as well as the accumulation of different stakeholders.

The research results provided strategies to inform, encourage and finance banks and other businesses to use social networks appropriately and effectively. These strategies can be categorized into the actions banks should take to expand social banking in the country and the actions policymakers should take into account in this regard. They are described as follows. Banks’ strategic actions include: provide training to staff on how employees should interact with customers on social networks encompassing general information and education about services, benefits and how to use social banking services for customers and society; motivate customer participation in social banking networks; convergence and integration of various offline and online channels; focus on core banking to expand competitiveness; pay attention to sustainable and green development in providing social banking services; analysis of the competitive environment in banking and other financial industries; designing a portfolio of social services for customers and allocation of budget and resources for development of social banking services and participation with other institutions and operators in providing financial and non-financial services. Policymakers’ actions include: adopt motivational policies for participation and use of social networks; education and awareness for different stakeholders; review and update the policies and rules of IT and social networks; establish appropriate laws to protect rights of employees and customers; invest in market and university studies on social banking and related services; develop policies for using in-house software and update rules and policies for small- and medium-sized enterprises.

Social banking is in its infancy in Iran and few banks deliver services of social banking in a limited scope. There is no technology roadmap for this purpose in Iran. This research presents a technology roadmap for social banking in Iran (and can be adopted for banks of other developing countries) and gives a comprehensive plan for banks to design products and services based on their capacities and create required programs to implement and improve them. The application of technology roadmapping in the field of social banking is new.

This study examines social reporting by Islamic banks with special emphasis on themes related to social justice. By using critical theory and “immanent critique”, the study attempts to explain and delineate reasons for disclosures and silences in Islamic banks ' annual reports and web sites vis-à-vis social justice.

The approach taken was a content analysis of annual reports and web sites of 19 Islamic banks.

Islamic banks ' disclosures emphasise their religious character through claims that they adhere to Sharia ' s teachings. Their disclosures, however, lack specific or detailed information regarding schemes or initiatives vis-à-vis poverty eradication or enhancing social justice.

Limitations associated with content analysis of annual reports and internet web sites apply. This study focuses on Islamic banks ' social roles. Further studies of banks ' social roles in society in general are of interest.

Drawing attention of Islamic banks and other stakeholders to the gap between the rhetorical religious and ethical claims of Islamic banks and their activities (as depicted through their disclosures) opens up the possibility of a positive change in Islamic banks ' actual social roles.

The study fills a gap in both social accounting and Islamic accounting literatures with its emphasis on social justice and poverty eradication. The study contributes to the very scarce literature linking religion (especially Islam), critical theory, social accounting and Islamic accounting. It goes beyond previous research in Islamic accounting literature by exposing contradictions in the Islamic banking industry ' s rhetoric regarding their social role in society.

This study examines the impact of social media activities on consumers’ willingness to pay a premium price (WTPp) in the banking industry, and investigates the role of consumer-brand identification (CBI) on this relationship. For the first time, the effect of electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) is considered separately from other social media marketing efforts (SMME).

Data from a sample of 145 banking customers that follow bank social networks was analysed using structural equation modelling and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to test a proposed structural model.

Findings indicate that the effect of eWOM and SMME on WTPp is fully mediated by CBI. The results uncover a viable path to achieve WTPp in the banking industry, which includes the joint presence of SMME, eWOM and CBI.

The study was conducted on the banking sector of Portugal. It is advocated that further research would investigate the results in other service sectors, across different countries.

Findings highlight the importance of social media marketing in banking. Results reveal opportunities for managers in the banking sector to enhance CBI and ultimately WTPp, through SMME and eWOM.

The study is the first to consider the influence of SMME and eWOM as separate antecedents of WTPp. The findings indicate that the effect of eWOM and SMME on WTPp is fully mediated by CBI. In particular, the results of the fsQCA indicate that the combined presence of SMME, eWOM and CBI, is sufficient to obtain WTPp.

The first French context of microfinance dates from the 1980's. As a matter of fact, the “grameen bank” model was imported at this time to France by M. Nowak, through her Association for an individual right to undertake: “Association pour le Droit à l'Initiative Economique” (ADIE). But today the domestic landscape of solidarity‐based finance counts plenty of “new” actors, such as: CIGALES, la NEF among others, not to forget intermediated social finance firms: Cooperative banks and public banks with social objectives like the Crédits Municipaux. The purpose of this paper is to show how solidarity‐based finance actors try to supply banking products and services to those who are excluded from access to the banking system and to test the hypothesis of an alternative financial system that is “socially responsible” in articulation with public and private sectors.

A typology of social banking actors is proposed. The nature of responsibility of each actor of this other kind of finance is described.

Social and solidarity‐based economy needs to be recognized by contemporary economics. Solidarity‐based finance shows us that another sustainable development model is possible.

This paper provides incentive to other social economists to continue this work in cooperation.

This paper aims to outline the argument for social outcomes as an objective for Islamic banks and investigate whether social failure exists in Islamic banking in Indonesia by assessing it against this performance dimension.

Content analysis of the annual reports of a sample of 12 Islamic commercial banks, seven Islamic banking units, and seven Islamic rural banks operating in Indonesia. The social outcomes to be measured employ the social objectives and disclosure measures from the prevailing literature, combined with the Kinder, Lydenberg, Domini Research and Analytics index of corporate social performance, the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals and five Environment Social Governance Scorecards developed by Oikocredit, a global cooperative and social investor group.

Social failure evident in all Islamic rural banks and half of all Islamic commercial banks, but in only one of the seven Islamic bank units where most banks appear to pursue social outcomes at the accommodative level (accepting and doing all that is required). A social outcome-weighted asset formulation reveals Islamic banking has improved in meeting its social objectives over time, but sometimes at the cost of other objectives relating to the environment and customers.

Single-country context for analysis and limited period of analysis given rapid growth of industry and less stringent reporting requirements in the past.

Islamic banking in Indonesia needs to continue to improve its social outcomes, particularly in relation to the environment and customer benefits.

Emphasis on banking supervisory bodies to regulate and provide incentives for the industry to address the social issues upon which consumer support, industry efforts and regulation draws.

Few existing studies investigate the social dimension of Islamic banking, not least in Indonesia. Novel quantitative and qualitative application of content analysis.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the extent of the contribution of the current Islamic financial system to society in terms of social responsibility (SR) required by the concept of social maslahah.

The paper adopts a critical analytic approach in considering the reasons of the failure of the social dimension of Islamic financial intermediation based on real figures of selected Islamic banks.

Concepts of SR and corporate social responsibility (CSR) are not enough to describe Islamic Banks' responsibilities. Also, this failure cannot be understood only with reference to the “external environment”, i.e. competition‐driven, capitalistic market conditions; but it is also closely related to the transformation of Islamic finance into an almost exclusively murabaha‐based Islamic banking, which promotes more individual maslahah than social maslahah. Compared to the murabaha, other product structures such as mudaraba and musharaka seem to be better instruments for expanding welfare and alleviating poverty.

There is a close relationship between Islamic banking contracts and social contribution of Islamic banks. This paper provides some practical solutions in this context. Also, empirical evidence derived from several conventional and Islamic banks supports these arguments.

This paper is the first to analyse the reasons for the social failure of Islamic Banks and to recommend substantial solutions in this scope and also offers practical help to practitioners of Islamic banking on the issue of social contribution of the Islamic banking business.

The aim of this paper is to show that there are other options for a firm (or a bank) than just following the mainstream logic of maximizing financial profits. This is the case of the so‐called “social banks”, which appeared in the mid‐1980s. Unlike the “financial green‐washing” of traditional banks, social banks have shown in their everyday practice that a bank can still be a competitive institution whilst committing wholeheartedly to the concept of sustainable development.

The analysis compares social banks to traditional universal banks at two levels: analysis of what they say, namely by looking at their annual report; and analysis of what they do, namely by looking at their activities as reflected in their balance sheet.

Concerning traditional banks, there is a major gap between what they say and what they do, whereas social banks are much more consistent in this regard. This is simply because social banks have put in place a different organization and different management structures and, overall, because they apply a different business model.

All banks are not the same. Beyond the “declarative ethics”, the methodology used in this paper helps to make the difference among them by using concrete evidence for measuring their “social added value”.

Explaining the sources of the differences in social performance among Islamic banks (IBs) is the motivation for this research. Consequently, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between the development of Islamic finance regulation, the development of an Islamic financial system, the proportions of affected Muslim populations and the level of competition, on the one hand, and the social performance of IBs, on the other. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study that investigates the impact of the development of regulation and the Islamic financial system on the social performance of IBs.

A balanced panel of annual data for 40 banks from 13 countries is applied, spanning 2012–2018. A social performance index with eight dimensions is constructed and measures the social performance of IBs. The index based on qualitative and quantitative data derives from IBs’ annual reports and financial statements. The linear scaling transformation method articulates the quantitative dimensions of the index. In hypotheses testing, the authors use OLS, LSDV, FEM and Random Effect Model to estimate Model (1) and panel-corrected standard errors with Prais–Winsten transformation to estimate Model (2).

This unique research confirms the positive impact of the development of Islamic finance regulation on the social performance of IBs. The results show that the development of Islamic finance regulation is consistently significant on all standard significance levels. IBs’ age and the presence of Muslim populations in the country are also significant in most estimators.

The results of this research highlight a significant value for regulators, shareholders and the management of IBs. Without proper regulation, these banks can hardly operate under the principles and expectations of the Islamic moral economy.

This is pioneering research that explores the development of Islamic finance regulation and market concentration as a determinant of social performance of IBs. Development of Islamic finance regulation has proved significant in all estimated models, which confirms that a new variable has been discovered among determinants of the social performance of IBs.

This study intends to test the relationship between banks’ board diversity, detected with age and gender characteristics, and banks’ social performance. The resource dependence theory posits that board diversity is a strategic tool able to enrich the board of directors by expanding skills and the number of links with stakeholders, which have a strategic role in achieving a competitive advantage and sustainable goals, especially in the banking sector.

The research hypotheses are tested using a sample of 46 European banks observed from 2009 to 2017. The gender and age diversity data of bank board members are hand-collected from banks’ social reports.

The empirical results show that bank social performance is positively influenced by board gender and age diversity. Thus, the human capital determined by a higher bank’s board diversity constitutes an essential resource for adopting more sustainable business models.

This paper analyses the association between board diversity and social performance, providing empirical evidence for the European banking sector in the period after the 2008 global financial crisis. The banking literature provides scarce evidence on the topic; however, the empirical results claim the strategic importance of the appointment of directors to the banks’ boards to balance corporate strategy with social and environmental issues generating a positive impact on sustainable growth.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the factors that would influence the intention to use social banking during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. This study integrated two theories, namely the integrated technology acceptance model (TAM), which focused on the acceptance of technology by consumers, and electronic word of mouth (eWOM), which focused on consumer behavior. This study also applied the significant variables in the context of Thailand, which were trust and perceived risk.

A quantitative research method was applied by collecting data from 411 consumers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Thailand. A combined multi-analytic approach of a structural equation model (SEM)-neural network was used to analyze the data. In the first step, the SEM was used to determine the important factors that affected the adoption of social banking. In the second step, a neural network model was used to prioritize the important factors to confirm the results of the SEM method in step 1.

The empirical results of the data analysis using the SEM method showed that the perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness and trust were the most significant determinants of adopting social banking. This was consistent with the neural network method of the important factors.

The results of this research could initiate issues that should be developed for the continued use of online banking among consumers in the context of developing countries, such as Thailand.

This research model provided guidelines for the effective development of mobile banking applications for use on mobile devices. The results of this research made strong theoretical contributions to the existing literature on online banking and offered procedures and information to the relevant sectors.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-10-2022-0709