Over the past decades, scholars have paid greater attention to relation between Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and corporate reputation. However, despite a growing interest in this area, such linkages have remained relatively unexplored in the banking industry and the precise relationship is not clear. Moving from these considerations, this study proposes a systematic review of peer-reviewed scientific literature aiming to: 1) list, 2) classify and 3) compare existing studies. The review was carried out using the following databases: ISI Web, Google Scholar, and SSRN. I investigate a number of publishing academic works, summarizing main approaches, results and insights. I also provide a roadmap for future study and offer research questions about critical areas of this stream of research. The paper contributes to the ongoing international debates, and the preliminary results are encouraging.

Over the past decades, scholars have paid greater attention to relation between Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and corporate reputation. However, despite a growing interest in this area, such linkages have remained relatively unexplored in the banking industry and the precise relationship is not clear. Moving from these considerations, this study proposes a systematic review of peer-reviewed scientific literature aiming to: 1) list, 2) classify and 3) compare existing studies. The review was carried out using the following databases: ISI Web, Google Scholar, and SSRN. I investigate a number of publishing academic works, summarizing main approaches, results and insights. I also provide a roadmap for future study and offer research questions about critical areas of this stream of research. The paper contributes to the ongoing international debates, and the preliminary results are encouraging.

Since stakeholders cannot directly observe corporate social responsibility (CSR) efforts, companies attempt to back up their increasing sustainability claims by sending CSR signals. The environment in which signaling takes place influences the credibility of the signals. Among the factors that make up the signaling environment, the overall exposure of the company to different stakeholders (i.e., stakeholder scrutiny) has been neglected by the literature. Using signaling and stakeholder theories, we argue how stakeholder scrutiny shapes CSR signals' credibility. We empirically analyze a sample of 5762 firms across several sectors from 23 developed countries from 2013 to 2017. Stakeholder scrutiny exercises a positive effect on the credibility of CSR signals through a mediated-moderated impact of CSR (across environmental, social, and governance dimensions) on firm performance.

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