The strategic priorities in the materiality matrix of the banking enterprise

Abstract

Purpose Nowadays, in this highly dynamic and complex context, companies have to act in a socially responsible and sustainable way to survive, creating shared value. The purpose of this paper is to analyse, through descriptive statistics, the elements that Italian banks identify as strategic to increasing their relational and reputational capital and to being in consonance with stakeholder’s expectations. Design/methodology/approach This paper investigates the width (number of intermediaries that included the materiality matrix in their non-financial reports) and the depth (number of indicators in the matrix) of the phenomenon to detect the bank’s attention on critical topics for their stakeholders. Findings The focus is on materiality matrices in order to detect a correspondence among the significant indicators selected by the banks and those value generators for stakeholders. In the perspective used in this work, property is also a stakeholder; indeed, wanting to use the terminology of the viable systems approach, property represents a relevant supra-system as it is critical and influential for the decision makers. Research limitations/implications The main limits are the low number of non-financial reports published by Italian banks, and the little information on the type of stakeholder involved in the building of the materiality matrix. Originality/value The originality of this work is multifaceted. Primarily, there are no similar studies in the banking sector. The present work intends to go beyond the studies already in the literature on mapping and stakeholder prioritisation as well as on the identification and selection of material themes. Moreover, having found, during the analysis of the banks’ reports, the heterogeneity of indicators identified as material, for both banks and stakeholders, the same have been traced back to the related stages identified by Carroll in the pyramid of social responsibility.

Rise and Fall of the Materiality Matrix: Lessons from a Missed Takeoff

“…(i) Data (Formisano et al 2017;Garcia-Torres et al 2017;Kurniawan et al 2019;Lubinger et al 2019;Saenz 2019;Reimsbach et al 2020;Campra et al 2020); (ii) Materials provided to experiment participants (Backof et al 2020); (iii) Data scoring (Gerwanski et al 2019;Mio et al 2020;Farooq et al 2021;Sepúlveda-Alzate et al 2021); (iv) Variable and index operationalization (De Cristofaro and Gulluscio 2019;Slacik and Greiling 2019;Ortar 2020;Ruiz-Lozano et al 2021;Tibiletti et al 2021).…”

“…Finally, the critique of MM includes both appreciations and criticisms that alternatively refer to and/or overlap with how preparers implement MM, its own virtues and faults, and the GRI approach. For example, the following strengths were stressed: • MM creates a multi-stakeholder context that fosters virtuous paths of co-creation of value and sustainable society (Formisano et al 2017);…”

Impact of M-Banking Service Quality on Customer Satisfaction with the Role of Trust and Customer Value Co-Creation Intentions

“…Co-creation can be defined as the behavior by any person to add/co-create the value and add in the integration process (Laud & Karpen, 2017). The viewpoint of value co-creation is vastly increasing in the banking sector (Formisano, Fedele, & Calabrese, 2018). Co-creation by customers not only allows customer participation but also adds to the value of services of banks (Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2004a, 2004b.…”