Corporate responsibility in the Italian banking industry: creating value through listening to stakeholders

Introduction
In recent years, ABI has paid great attention to the issues involved in corporate social
responsibility (CSR). The role that ABI has taken up, in keeping with its organizational
functions and objectives, is twofold: contributing to the discussion and divulgation of the
issue at various levels within the banking community through a series of surveys and studies
that interested banks can use for self-aware development of their own scenarios and
prospects; and giving its member banks the instruments needed to integrate social
responsibility into their business strategy.
In a recent work (Zappi, 2005)[1] CSR has been defined as multi-stakeholder-oriented
strategic corporate management: a notion related to the global strategies of the bank, rather
than an ad hoc activity added to the traditional functions of the organizations that operate in
the credit sector. In other words, CSR should not be seen as a new, specific area of activity
for the bank; more generally, CSR is a different way of being a bank.