Canadian banks and their responses to COVID-19 – stakeholder-oriented crisis management

The financial sector is essential to the stability of markets in times of crisis and during the pandemic, banks are called to contribute to society by easing access to credit or keeping rates low. This article explores Canadian banks’ responses to the pandemic assessing their products, services and stakeholders. Using crisis management and stakeholder theories, 3161 news articles about the five biggest Canadian banks and the pandemic were assessed as a proxy for banks’ responses to the pandemic using sentiment analysis, text mining, and statistical methodologies. Results show that banks were negatively impacted by the pandemic and that their stakeholders were approached differently highlighting the community over clients and employees. This study contributes to the need to adapt crisis management strategies and theories to unexpected crises, as others may come, and it sheds some light on stakeholder management measurement processes, which speak to how effective stakeholder management is.