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Savings banks were a key component of the banking industry in Western European countries in the early 1980s – a distinct, not-for-profit form of banking organizations existing alongside joint-stock banks. After 1980, three decades of banking consolidation and pro-market regulatory reforms were widely expected to make savings banks disappear. Yet, in some countries at least, savings banks have survived, as persistently distinct organizational forms. Moreover, in countries as similar as France and Italy, organizational diversity as epitomized by the survival of savings banks has taken two apparently diverse routes. To solve this double puzzle, this article builds on the “new organizational synthesis” in organizational theory and on the comparative neo-institutional literature, and draws on a comparative case study analysis of savings banks consolidation in France and Italy, from 1980 to 2012. The study contributes to the literature on the co-evolution of institutions and organizations by focusing on meso-level coordination and fully incorporating the relevance of state actors and policies in the analysis of organizational change.
