La responsabilidad social en el sector bancarioanálisis a nivel internacional

Abstract

The interest shown towards Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has been gaining a lot of notoriety since the end of the last century, both in the business and in the academic and social fields. Based on this concept, the company goes beyond obtaining economic profitability, taking into account that it has a responsibility to the society with which it interacts. The new trend towards a socioeconomic model in which the company no longer has the sole objective of maximizing profits, is presented with the adoption of CSR policies in its business management. Our interest in the social responsibility of the banking sector is based on the importance, scope and impact that the business of banking has on the world economy. Its economic function is not limited only to intermediate flows by adequately managing financial risks. Banks also manage other types of social and environmental risks, increasingly aware that social responsibility practices are an investment in their performance, image and reputation and in the creation of value and long-term sustainability. This Doctoral Thesis consists of three articles whose common purpose is to study how social responsibility practices carried out by banks at the international level influence the creation of value for their shareholders. The first article, in particular, analyzes whether the environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance of 51 banking entities listed on 20 of the main developed stock markets around the world has a significant impact on their share price. The study is conducted for the period 2002-2015 to examine this impact both before and after the international financial crisis. The second article, on the other hand, analyzes the role of socially responsible activities in the creation of shareholder value for a sample of 166 banking institutions listed on 31 stock markets. On this second occasion, we include banking entities listed in both developed and emerging markets. However, the study period has been reduced to the years 2010 to 2015 due to the scarcity of information on ESG performance of listed financial institutions in emerging markets in previous years. Therefore, this second study complements the previous one, as it focuses on international differences rather than temporary ones. In the third and final research, unlike the two previous ones, the focus is on the disclosure practices of the sustainability activities of the banks rather than on the practices themselves. However, as in the two previous works, the reaction of financial stakeholders to these practices is analyzed. The reason for this third study is twofold. First, we believe that to correctly analyze how the various stakeholders react, we must go to their source of information, which is the sustainability reports. Secondly, we did not want to ignore the extensive literature on the dissemination of CSR practices through sustainability reports and their impact on stock prices. In this case, with the aim of providing additional study to the previous empirical evidence, the objective of the study was to analyze the impact of the disclosure of sustainability reports as well as the verification of such reports by independent experts on stock market prices. The study has been carried out for 135 banks listed on the main international stock markets during the period 2012-2017. Throughout this Doctoral Thesis, the importance given to CSR has been made clear, not only within the banking institutions, but also in the environment in which they operate. Given this growing notoriety, CSR has become a requirement to operate in the markets and stakeholders demand it to a greater extent. In our research work it has been empirically demonstrated that social responsibility, beyond being a requirement imposed by society, contributes to the generation of economic and social value for the banks themselves. In this way, it is demonstrated and by way of general conclusions, that shareholders value the three ESG pillars in a different way, there is no homogeneity in environmental, social and corporate governance practices. More specifically, we note that there is a positive and significant influence of environmental performance and corporate governance on the creation of value for shareholders, this relationship being significant and negative when what is analyzed is the social performance of banking institutions. In addition, we observed in the first study that this relationship is significantly greater after the international financial crisis, while in the second study we observed that this relationship is maintained in the case of banks listed on emerging stock markets. Finally, this Thesis also shows that the disclosure of sustainability reports is a practice that does not provide additional value to stakeholders; however, when these banks secure the information they disclose, they become significantly relevant to the value of these assets in the stock markets.