Stakeholder engagement for sustainable development in banking industry. An Italian case study

Nowadays, social media are increasingly used to engage stakeholder in current debate on sustainability, in order to better communicate the real firm's approach to environmental, economic and social issues (Our common future, 1987; Reilly and Weirup, 2012). The study aims to investigate the influence of social media on sustainable development within the banking industry (Scholtens, 2009; Jeucken, 2010; Sobhani et al., 2012) in order to ensure longterm sustainable profits (Battilana and Dorado, 2010; Bertelsmann, 2013). The study draws together the relevant literature from different but related disciplines in order to deeply analyse social media influence on banking sustainability strategies (Ballou et al., 2012) and on stakeholder involvement in these activities. The paper is based on a case study approach (Eisenhardt, 1989) in order to point out the new potential of social media for sustainability communication and stakeholder engagement, according to Monte dei Paschi di Siena case study evidence. It is generally held that social media represent both for sustainability and stakeholder engagement a great occasion even more in a critical area such as banking industry. One of the main finding of the present analysis is that these media seem to play an important role in corporate reputation management, fundamental to gain a real stakeholder commitment, and in communication of banking sustainability programs.