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The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the development of the theoretical framework for corporate social responsibility (CSR) and to provide a number of conceptual considerations which can be considered in the design of measures for corporate social performance (CSP).

This study develops a theoretical framework of CSR and provides conceptual considerations to improve the measurement of CSP. The example of Spanish savings banks is used to illustrate the complexity of the concept of CSR, which includes different dimensions and relationships.

CSP evaluation can be affected by the illusion of CSR, which may result in invalid conclusions on the relationship with financial performance. This risk mainly affects those studies whose CSP measure is based on charity or philanthropic activities, as most of the time they are disconnected from core business. These activities enjoy great visibility and, in some cases, such as Spanish savings banks, they become a thick veil that can be used to hide serious deficiencies in other key aspects of CSP.

This study has implications for the literature on the conceptual and theoretical framework of CSR and the research on the link between CSP and financial performance. This paper highlights the importance of seeking comprehensive measures that cannot be misleading because of the relationships between the components of CSR.

The paper provides a novel conceptual framework for CSR, which connects the conceptual debate around “Strategic CSR” with the theoretical framework designed by Carroll’s (1991) Pyramid of CSR and emphasizes the importance of a meticulous examination of the CSP construct before studying its relationship with financial performance.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how Spanish savings banks have come to compete directly with commercial banks. It also looks at how regulatory changes and corporate strategies have affected the nature of competition between the two types of bank in Spain.

There is a re‐examination of the existing bibliography as a basis prior to the analysis of new data as identified in surviving records from the Bank of Spain and the Spanish Confederation of savings banks (Confederación Española de Cajas de Ahorro (CECA)).

The work adopts a novel approach to explaining the current status quo in the Spanish banking industry and refocuses the performance of Spanish savings banks. The analysis highlights the role of the diverse institutional agents, i.e. the banks, savings banks, cooperative banks and mutual banks and the role these play in the evolution of competition. The effectiveness of the managers, of both the CECA and the savings banks, is also placed under the spotlight, and the part they play in the development of collaborative competition. The trajectory of Spanish banking, post deregulation, has been somewhat different from that of its European counterparts over recent decades.

Some lessons for present day managers emerge as to the role of diversification rather than scale under an otherwise tight regulatory regime and the role of competitive collaboration in banking market.

Particular attention is given to the impact that diverse organisational forms have on the evolution of competitive forces.

The purpose of this paper is to examine customer corporate social responsibility (CSR) expectations in the crisis context of the Spanish banking industry. The paper also takes into consideration the role that corporate governance structure plays in customer CSR expectations.

Analysing 648 customers of savings banks and 476 customers of commercial banks, several univariate statistics and two cluster analyses are implemented.

The authors identify significantly consistent patterns in the CSR expectations of savings banks and commercial banks customers. The customers of both types of banking companies have similar high expectations concerning the CSR oriented to customers, shareholders and supervising boards, employees, the community and legal and ethical CSR. Also customers of both types of banking companies can be consistently classified as customer oriented, legally (customer)-oriented and CSR-oriented customers depending on their CSR expectations.

These results have interesting implications for managers because it allows them to develop optimal CSR based on their customers’ expectations. In this regard, it is observed that the CSR expectations of savings banks and commercial banks customers are quite homogeneous in such a way that the traditional differentiation in the CSR implemented by savings banks and commercial banks may be no longer justified.

Previous scholars who have analysed customer CSR expectations have not studied them in a crisis context. This paper contributes to literature by proposing new managerial strategies for companies facing a product or corporate crisis. Scholars studying customer CSR expectations in the banking industry have not considered the role of corporate governance structure either. This paper provides detailed information about the CSR expectations of savings banks customers and commercial banks customers.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the influence of political presence on profitability in Spanish savings banks. Together with political connections, the paper analyzes the effects of chairmen’s banking experience on the efficiency of the savings banks.

Information was collected from all the savings banks in the sample for the period 2002-2009. The database used combines time series with cross-section data to give a panel of data to be estimated with this methodology.

After differentiating between municipal and regional participation, the results show that regional participation causes lower efficiency in a savings bank. There is no evidence that the financial experience of the chairman is an aspect that improves savings banks’ profitability.

The analyses undertaken in this paper help to detect whether certain corporate governance practices affect stakeholders' interests and the economy as a whole, through their effects on economic and financial interests, like the efficiency of savings banks. The paper lends support to the recent legal reforms aimed at reducing political presence on the boards of savings banks.

El principal objetivo de este trabajo es analizar la influencia de la presencia política en la rentabilidad de las cajas de ahorro españolas. También se estudia el efecto de la experiencia bancaria del presidente en la eficiencia de las cajas.

La información se ha obtenido de las cajas de ahorro españolas durante el periodo 2002-2009. La base de datos utiliza datos temporales con información cross-seccional, permitiendo el uso de datos de panel como metodología principal.

Tras diferenciar entre participación política municipal y regional, los resultados muestran que es la presencia regional la que causa menor eficiencia en las cajas. No hay evidencia de influencia de la experiencia bancaria del presidente.

Los análisis realizados en el trabajo ayudan a detector si ciertas prácticas de gobierno afectan los intereses de los stakeholders y la economía como un todo, analizando sus efectos es aspectos económicos, como la eficiencia de las cajas. El documento apoya las recientes reformas legales, tendentes a reducir la presencia política en los consejos de las cajas de ahorro.

Society's concern about issues related to development aid to underdeveloped countries has grown significantly in recent years. The gross inequalities between North and South, constant conflicts, political crises, and natural disasters have sensitized society to the urgent need to help these depressed areas. The objective of the present study is to examine the role Spain's savings banks play in international cooperation and development as a field that society and the general public see as ever more crucial.

The paper describes an exploratory analysis of the interventions carried out by all Spain's savings banks during 2009.

The results of this exploratory study reflect an increasingly relevant role of these savings banks in cooperation for development, mainly due to pressure from their customers and from society in general. They also show the importance of so‐called “Works in collaboration”, mainly with non‐governmental organizations/non‐governmental development organizations, in designing and implementing corporate social responsibility programs.

Much of the value of the present work is because of the lack of previous studies focused specifically on analyzing the role of Spanish savings banks in the field of cooperation for development. Its originality also lies in its proposing new courses of action in this area to improve that role.

The purpose of this article is to present how innovations in the social action program of a Spanish savings bank produce strategic changes in the organization.

The paper follows a historical approach, first studying Spanish savings banks in general and the Caja de Ahorros de Navarra (CAN) in particular. It then examines the strategic challenges that the CAN faced in 2002 and the organizational response through the “You choose, you decide” initiative. The implementation of the program is chronicled and results evaluated against strategic objectives.

In embodying the social action program of the CAN, the “You choose, you decide” campaign has successfully differentiated the bank. Customer‐stakeholders have acquired a high degree of identification with the bank since they now decide on the beneficiaries of the social action program as well as their level of prioritization.

This work is of special interest to bank managers who would like to incorporate CSR and increased stakeholder involvement into their strategic and differentiation objectives.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the cost efficiency of banks operating in two “non‐core” EU countries, Portugal and Spain, over a number of years. Specifically, the paper aims to examine the extent to which banks' efficiency is influenced by their portfolio orientation and scale of operation.

Data envelopment analysis is used to identify banks' levels of performance over time in both countries. In order to decompose banks' total factor productivity change into technological, scale efficiency and pure efficiency changes, the Malmquist index method is applied.

Banks operating in both countries have improved their performance over time and savings banks and large banks, in particular, have tended to outperform other types of banks. Banks operating in Spain tend to perform better than in Portugal and Spanish‐owned banks perform better than their Portuguese‐owned counterparts. The improvements in performance revealed have mainly been due to technological change.

Bankscope is a well‐respected data source and has been the basis of many studies of performance in international banking. Unfortunately, owing to data deficiencies, around 20 per cent of the banks operating in Portugal and Spain were not included.

If Portuguese banks are to be competitive internationally, there is considerable need for efficiency improvements.

The paper provides insights into the dynamics of the Portuguese and Spanish banking systems. The results should be of interest to management in banking and bank regulators in Europe, and economists and others studying bank performance trends. The research reported may shed light on some of the challenges facing the banking sectors of the “new” EU states (such as Poland and Hungary).

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the performance of Spanish banking entities between 2009 and 2013, a period marked by the reform of the banking system with a large number of mergers and integrations.

First, efficiency is measured applying the data envelopment analysis (DEA) methodology and, then, the Malmquist index is calculated to assess its evolution.

The results show that most of the entities have improved their performance from the production approach. However, from the intermediation approach, the efficiency of the sample has deteriorated, which raises questions about the sustainability of the traditional banking business when the current credit restriction strategy is long lasting.

The comparative analysis demonstrates that, after the deep reforms carried out in Spain, the banking entities maintain similar efficiency rankings to those they had at the beginning of the period analysed. This shows that the reform has created new groups that operate adequately, avoiding the closing of institutions. Despite the better rationalisation of the available resources, the outlook for Spanish banks remains unclear in the current macroeconomic context, which does not favour the banking business.

The study contributes to the literature on the Spanish banking system because it adds new empirical evidence about its restructuring and it applies a DEA model to a sample before and after mergers. The authors discuss theoretical and managerial implications and offer suggestions for future research on this field.

This paper studies the impact of ownership structure on performance in European banking both prior and during the recent crisis. We use a panel of European banks during the period 1996–2011 and utilize random effects estimations in order to identify differences in bank performance (profitability, loan quality, and cost efficiency) due to differences in ownership structure. Both stakeholder and shareholder banks have distinct advantages, shareholder banks showing better profitability before the crisis but stakeholder banks having higher loan quality before and during the crisis. Differences in profitability and loan quality between stakeholder and shareholder banks before the crisis are especially pronounced in countries that experienced a banking crisis after 2007. There is strong a heterogeneity in performance between different stakeholder ownership groups. With the exception of private savings banks, profitability and loan quality of stakeholder banks has improved relative to that of general shareholder banks during the crisis years. The paper contributes to the previous literature by comparing pre-crisis and crisis performance and includes more refined ownership classifications. The results indicate that the survival of the stakeholder model is due to its competitive advantages. Our findings provide support for those arguing that the diversity of organizational structures is worth preserving. Ownership pluralism should become a policy objective in the banking industry.

The analysis of strategic groups has important implications in marketing in the identification of a firm’s competitive position. The aim of this study is to demonstrate that differences in the performance between the strategic groups within an industry exist. The initial hypothesis is that mobility barriers between the groups mean that their members have a relative advantage over other participants in the sector as far as expenses regarding imitation are concerned. Therefore, differences in profits tend to be maintained on a medium‐ and long‐term basis. However, the majority of empirical studies do not show the differences in the perfomance in a clear way. The methodology used consists of different multivariant statistical techniques. On their application to the Spanish savings banks, a limited support for this relation is obtained for some variables.