Community Banks Research Articles

Evaluating the Impact of Rural Finance on Cocoa Farmers Productivity: A Case Study of Bodi District in Ghana

Background: Agricultural finance from rural and community banks play a major role in increasing both yield and income of rural farmers in agricultural-dependent economies. These finances are needed for purchasing raw materials, paying labor fees and buying farming equipment, etc. However, substantial evidence about their roles in improving farm productivity is lacking, especially in the cocoa sector in Ghana, where rural and community banks are the forerunners in advancing credit to cocoa farmers in Ghana’s deprived rural cocoa-growing communities. This research, therefore, seeks to determine the impact of rural and community banks’ credit on cocoa farmers' productivity in the Bodi District of Ghana.
 Methodology: Using random sampling method, a cross-sectional data of 350 cocoa farmers from 5 operational areas (Afere, Bodi, Amoaya, Kama and Suino) located in Bodi District in the Western region. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and logistic regression models. Statistical software (SPSS v20 and STATA v14) were used to analyze quantitative data on cocoa productivity.
 Results: The results revealed that cocoa farmers with access to credit experienced significant yield increase (p<0.05) with a mean of 359.71 kgha-1 as compared to 235.30 kgha-1 for non-credit takers. Further, only 34.3% of farmers accessed credit for farming. With Pseudo R2 value of 0.78, farm tenure system, fertilizer use, access to credit and access to extension services significantly influenced cocoa yield, while the age of cocoa farmer, age of farm trees and vulnerability of farm to natural disaster negatively affected cocoa yield. Tukey HSD results (p<0.00) indicate that rural banks credit allocations to non-agricultural activities such as trade and transport, and social loans had the highest percentage means which suggests that agriculture is treated less favorable in rural banks' credit portfolio. These findings give credence to the assertion that rural banks are deviating from their core mandate of supporting agriculture in Ghana.
 Conclusion: This study reaffirms the supporting roles played by rural and community banks in increasing cocoa yield in Ghana. However, this research recommends that, the Bank of Ghana should closely monitor the activities of these unit banks to reduce the instances of diverting all their funds to non-agricultural related activities.

Is Social Entrepreneurship Learning for Students Based on Spiritual Experiences Still Relevant?

This study aims to develop a learning model through the experience of Muslim entrepreneurial spirit in the social entrepreneurship activities. The objectives achieved in the activities: a. It is gotten the description of strategies of learning model on social entrepreneurship using social business of canvas model, b. elaboration of social entrepreneur learning materials based on spiritual experience.The research design is development research. Data collection techniques use observation, entrepreneurial training based on Muslim entrepreneurial spirit experience, making of Social Business of Canvas Model, waste bank practices and evaluation. Cultivating the spirit of Muslim social entrepreneurship in students includes a sense of belief in God, fear of God, morality, siddiq (honest), amanah (truthful) , tabligh (convey) , fathanah (smart), discipline, visionary, empathy. The activity was continued with the field practice of making a waste bank in a student domicile and evaluation environment. The results of the activities show a positive and effective value where from the results of the different sample tests. The broader implications are that students are able to form several waste bank communities and they are able to play an active role as innovators and real actors Keywords: experiential learning, Muslim entrepreneurial spirit, social business canvas DOI: 10.7176/JEP/11-11-03 Publication date: April 30 th 2020

The role of Corporate Social Responsibility in Organisational Identity Communication, Co-Creation and Orientation

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) research has mainly focused on understanding the antecedents and outcomes of CSR adoption. Yet, little is known about the organisational process of ‘CSR engagement’ and how this would affect organisational identity. We mobilise Basu and Palazzo’s cognitive and linguistic notions of sense-making and Brickson’s organisational identity orientation to frame how rural community banks (RCBs) in Ghana engage with CSR. Drawing from semi-structured interviews with RCB directors, managers and other stakeholders, we conceive of the CSR engagement process as one that allows for the communication and orientation of organisational identity through an ‘informal co-creation’ involving organisational actors and stakeholders. Our findings also emphasise the ‘cultural/political’ modes of justification put forward by RCBs in their CSR engagement. Lastly, we tentatively propose the notion of an ‘opaque context’ to highlight settings that are less concerned about public visibility (i.e. transparency and disclosure), and where the focus is instead on the direct interactions between organisations and stakeholders in a given social context.

Competitive aggressiveness, community banking and performance

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to develop and empirically test a conceptualization of competitive aggressiveness (CA), a dimension of entrepreneurial orientation.Design/methodology/approachStructural equation modeling and hierarchical regression are employed on responses from 182 banks in the southwestern US Performance data on the banks are drawn from the US Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation's (FDIC's) Call reports.FindingsThe results indicate awareness, motivation and capability are antecedents of CA, which itself is positively related to increased market share and, in more dense markets, profitability.Practical implicationsAggressive firms exhibit certain routines that can lead to competitive actions, which assists performance in some contexts. Managers who wish to increase (or decrease) their firms' overall competitive posture can encourage (or discourage) employees from performing competitive routines such as monitoring their rivals or talking about their rivals' strategies.Originality/valueBy developing CA' conceptualization, the study advances the understanding of the antecedents of competitive behavior and makes it easier to study competition in smaller firms.

A community bank’s digital transformation: Process, people and branding — implementing a purposeful digital banking strategy that puts people first

When faced with expanding digital service offerings, community banks tend to fall into one of three categories: do nothing, do only what their core processor allows for or do what helps bolster the bank’s client experience. Unfortunately, the third option is used by the fewest banks. Client needs are what should drive technological upgrades. That requires clearly identifying client expectations and objectives, as well as utilising an agile, fast-fail workflow approach. From there, banks must ensure people within the organisation are positioned to embrace each new digital offering, allowing findings to funnel and inform the brand’s ideal customer journey. This paper analyses how community banks’ digital offerings can compete with those of both big banks and FinTechs. The paper describes how banks must define clear objectives based on meeting customer needs. It recommends using a client-centric approach with digital transformation.

SUPPORTIVE LEADERSHIP AND ITS RELATIONSHIP TO ROA WITH COMMUNITY BANKS DURING THREE ECONOMIC TIME PERIODS

ABSTRACT The purpose of the research is to determine if supportive leadership has an influence upon the financial performance of a company, in this case, Community Banks. Community Banks are generally locally owned; their stock is not traded on exchanges, and they have deposits of less than ten billion dollars. Community Banks in the southeastern United States were surveyed during three economic time periods (2003-2005, 2009-2011 and 2014-2016). Supportive Leadership, and its three components remain very important as managers and their staff hasten to identify problem assets, or potentially problem assets, by maintaining a high level of communication with the bank staff. This was found to be true in all three economics snap shots. Keywords Leadership styles, Supportive Leadership, Path-Goal Leadership theory, Situational Leadership Theory, financial performance, Return on Asset.

Optimizing O-negative RBC utilization using a data-driven approach.

O-negative red blood cells (ON-RBC) are a precious resource and the international blood banking community has become increasingly concerned with its inappropriate utilization. AABB recently made several recommendations to address the issue. Solutions must be multifaceted and involve donor centers, blood banks, and clinical departments. From the perspective of a hospital blood bank, it is difficult to rely solely on increased donor recruitment and ubiquitous blood typing of the entire in-patient population. We therefore focused on interventions within the blood bank to optimize inventory and policies to ensure appropriate ON-RBC utilization. Transfusion data over one year was examined for the rate of out-of-group/inappropriate ON-RBC. Furthermore, we assessed whether that rate was related to product life on the day of transfusion. We also examined our stock inventory levels and how excess inventory can contribute to inappropriate ON-RBC usage. The ON-RBC inventory level was decreased in order to reduce the rate of inappropriate transfusions while maintaining a safe level for optimal patient care. Compared to baseline, our intervention caused ON-RBCs to be transfused earlier in their shelf-life (9.27 vs. 11.15 days from expiration [DFE], p = 0.0012). This reduced the overall rate of inappropriate ON-RBC transfusions (67% vs. 54%, p = 0.0035), approximating 185 units of ON-RBC saved over the course of 6 months. A data-driven approach to optimize stock inventory levels is widely applicable; it can be adopted by numerous institutions to improve utilization and establish a benchmark for the broader blood banking community.

Form the Optimal Investment Portfolio Applied Study in the Jordanian Banking Sector (2013-2017)

The study aimed to form the optimal investment portfolio in the Jordanian banking sector. The research covered a period (2013-2017) and the sample of the study was selected from its community of Jordanian banks listed on the Amman Stock Exchange, consisting of (15) working banks for which the necessary data are available to study.
 
 The importance of the research lies in the formation of a thought and methodology that can be applied and utilized by investors and securities analysts in the management of their investment portfolio.
 
 The study shows that the effective rate of return is higher than the required rate of return in the Jordanian commercial banks. This indicates that the commercial banks have succeeded in their estimates of the required or actual rate of return for the optimal investment portfolio banks. the correlation matrix between returns on each bank in the investment portfolio is mostly low, which confirms that the investment portfolio of Jordanian banks is efficient, as Markowitz stressed on his focus on the correlation coefficient between returns and its impact on the return and risk of the optimal investment portfolio that achieve the highest return at a certain level of risk.

Does Servant Leadership’s People Focus Facilitate or Constrain Its Positive Impact on Performance? An Examination of Servant Leadership’s Direct, Indirect, and Total Effects on Branch Financial Performance

Servant leadership’s positive effects for employees and the organization are well-documented, but servant leadership theory postulates that servant leaders prioritize people more than production. This untested supposition raises questions about whether servant leadership’s emphasis on employee support relative to goal achievement has negative consequences for a unit’s financial performance through group organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) that constrain servant leadership’s positive effect on unit performance. The resource allocation framework applied to OCBs suggests that trade-offs exist between OCBs and financial performance because both behaviors impose demands on employees’ limited time. In addition, a work group’s social norms may exert subtle forms of pressure on group members to increase their helping behaviors. This pressure may incur process loss that negatively affects financial performance. Data consisting of 546 employees from 103 bank branches within a large Midwestern community bank support servant leadership’s positive direct effect on branch financial performance; its stronger relationship with support climate than goal achievement climate; and its negative indirect effect on branch financial performance through support climate and branch OCBs that weakened servant leadership’s total positive effect on branch financial performance. Goal achievement climate was not significantly associated with branch OCBs. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Association Analysis Of Gender, Job Type, Education Level, Income Level, Religion And Spirituality Levels Against The Type Of The Selected Bank Community In Indonesia

<em>This study aims to analyze and explore the relationship of demographic aspects of society, including gender, education level, income level, occupation, religion, and spiritual level towards the types of banks that used by the people of Indonesia. The research method used is descriptive quantitative method with correspondence analysis technique. 200 communities have been chosen as a sample. They are the customers of conventional banks, sharia banks, or both of them. The results of this study argue that, not all demographic aspects of society have association or relationship with the type of bank selected by respondents. Only religion and spiritual level aspects have real associations. Muslim respondents are more likely to choose Islamic banks than non-multifarious respondents. Respondents with high spiritual level tend to be associated with sharia banks rather than low ones. This research can be used for the marketing designer as one of the basic determines for the marketing strategy of the bank.</em>

The behavioral theory of the (community‐oriented) firm: The differing response of community‐oriented firms to performance relative to aspirations

AbstractResearch SummaryCombining insights from the behavioral theory of the firm with sociological research on local embeddedness, we propose that community‐oriented firms respond differently to performance relative to aspirations than noncommunity‐oriented firms. Community‐oriented firms develop long‐term relations with local constituents and emphasize community goals. This orientation should buffer them from the risk‐inducing effects of falling below financial aspirations, and encourage them to pursue community goals more intensely when exceeding financial aspirations. Using U.S. bank data from 2005 to 2013, we find that community orientation—exemplified by community banks—attenuates the influence of performance below aspirations on risk‐taking, but amplifies the influence of performance above aspirations on community investments such as small business loans. We discuss implications for a sociologically informed view of performance feedback processes.Managerial SummaryRelative to their size, locally embedded community banks take less risk and make more small business loans than do larger banks. We find that they also respond differently to performance relative to aspirations than do noncommunity banks. Specifically, while community‐oriented banks increase risk‐taking when their performance is below aspirations, they do so less intensely than larger banks. This is because factors related to ownership and community embeddedness make such banks more risk averse than large banks. Also, performance above aspirations provides freedom of action, and community banks use that freedom to increase small business lending. Such lending benefits the community and improves the business environment in which the community bank operates important secondary goals to community‐embedded firms.

Popular Community Banks in Mexico: Designing the Measuring Tool of Innovation in Services for Competitiveness

Today, the PCB are a very important social alternative because they are based upon the development of their members and the community unlike banks, based over the profitability. However, in Mexico they have a bad reputation because of cases reported in the last decades of abuse and fraud to its members. Fortunately, not all cases are like this, because there are 4 case studies of PCB placed at the Sierra de Amula and South Coast of Jalisco (SACSJ), which served as inspiration to give permanence and continuity to the original concept. These such PCBs are Agustin de Iturbide (1955;11,232 members), Cristobal Colon (1972; 32,584 members), San Jose Casimiro (1977; 6,539 members) and Santa Maria Guadalupe (1960;17,030 members) totaling 67,385 members in December 2011. This document is intended to discover the Variables of Innovation in Services (VIS) of those PCB and relating competitiveness to permanence, growth and retention, to allow the managers of these PCB to recognize them, and decide the actions in order to become more competitive. The methodology suggested was base on literature review and empirical query to 15 experts in PCB. 4 VIS were determined: Profile of the Leader, Decisions Mnagement, Innovation and Regulations. Each of one were characterized to determine, finally: Profile of the Leader with 3 Dimensions and 8 Indicators; Regulations with 2 Dimensions and 4 Indicators; Management Decisions with 6 Dimensions, 12 Indicators, Innovation: 1 Dimension, 4 Indicators.

A case for American economic reform: Small businesses and inclusive economies

ABSTRACT The American Dream is based on an inclusive economy. An inclusive economy thrives on diverse land ownership; adaptive re-use of existing buildings; local and alternative business ownership; community banks and credit unions; economic development reform and education; and, inclusion of all community members.

The Performance of FDIC-Identified Community Banks

Using a novel method to separate US community banks over the 1984-2013 period from their non-community counterparts we compare the two bank types on the basis of cost efficiency. We decompose cost efficiency into a persistent and a residual component; the former capturing the market structure and regulatory changes, the latter reflecting managerial performance. Our estimates show community banks to exhibit a 4.9% higher efficiency compared to their non-community counterparts. The decomposition further reveals that community banks benefit from superior managerial capabilities and from developments at the regulatory front. Size is non-linearly related to efficiency and large community banks are the most efficient. A strong positive link between profitability and efficiency exists for community banks, with the effect being muted in non-community banks. Participation in bank holding companies is harmful for community banks’ efficiency. Liquidity creation is positively (negatively) related to efficiency of (non-)community banks, and highlights the distinctiveness of the business models and the need for differentiated regulatory supervision. Community banks efficiency is positively (negatively) related to liquidity (credit) risk. Our results are robust to a series of salient checks.

The Propagation of Local Credit Shocks: Evidence from Hurricane Katrina

A local credit shock, induced by hurricane Katrina, propagated through banks’ internal networks to produce real and credit markets’ effects in distant regions. Driven by abnormal mortgage and housing demand in Katrina-hit areas, financially constrained multi-market banks reallocated resources towards the damaged areas leading to a credit tightening in the undamaged local markets. Depending on their housing supply elasticity, local housing markets in the undamaged regions responded to this credit disruption with a mix of housing prices and housing supply declines. These spillovers depended on undamaged markets’ financial linkages to disaster areas. In the undamaged regions, community banks, being local and unexposed to disaster areas, partially insulated their markets from these spillovers.

Bringing it home: The 14th annual Community Bankers Symposium

The 14th annual Community Bankers Symposium, cosponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), was held at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago on November 22, 2019. During a full day of speeches and panels, community bank executives, financial industry practitioners, and regulatory agency professionals who work in the Seventh Federal Reserve District explored the current landscape of community banking. This article provides an overview of the event’s key presentations and discussions.

Правовые проблемы идентификации при дистанционном финансовом обслуживании физических лиц

In connection with the introduction of a high alert and self-isolation regime in the Russian Federation due to the coronavirus pandemic, the issue of remote financial services for individuals, especially the remote opening of accounts, deposits and lending to new customers, is particularly relevant in the banking community. The aim of the article is to propose additional regulatory measures to those already introduced in order to improve the process of financial service provision to individuals in a remote format. The research method is the study of various acts of state bodies (normative acts and newsletters), including those adopted during the period of high alert, as well as surveys of National Council of Financial Market member financial organizations on the impact of measures taken on their activities concerning the provision of services to individuals as well as suggestions for improving them. The article includes an analysis of regulators’ most important decisions on the issue and an evaluation of their impact on the sphere regulated, along with a consideration of international regulating experience in remote identification procedures. Based on the results of the work, conclusions are drawn on the appropriateness and sufficiency of the regulatory measures taken to ensure remote financial services for individuals in conditions of self-isolation as well as on promising ways to further improve the current legislation in this area.

Customer Satisfaction and the Durability of Retail Banking Relationships

Building on 699,008 reviews of 75,903 U.S. bank branches, this paper proposes the first detailed empirical framework to study how banks engage with customers at the branch level. In a within bank-county estimation, we exploit reputation damage as exogenous negative shocks to deposit-taking and find that branches receiving higher ratings mitigate deposit outflows more effectively following these shocks. These results are stronger in neighborhoods with higher income and lower population mobility, and for branches of community banks. Overall, our work highlights the value of customer interactions as a novel and important non-price factor influencing the durability of retail banking relationships.

Battle of the Banks: The Genesis and Resilience of Community Banking in Oklahoma

Battle of the Banks: The Genesis and Resilience of Community Banking in Oklahoma

Commentary: Long-term solutions to revive eye banking in India in COVID-19 era - Needs more than long-term corneal preservation.

Commentary: Long-term solutions to revive eye banking in India in COVID-19 era - Needs more than long-term corneal preservation.