Organizational form has important implications for economic behavior, performance, and business activities of financial firms (see, ., O’Hara 1981, Rasmusen 1988, and Fama and Jensen 1983). One unusual characteristic among financial intermediaries is the fact that mutual and stock companies coexist (Amess 2002), while outside the financial sector, stock firms dominate and mutual companies are relatively rare (Remmers 2003). The main objective of a commercial bank is shareholder value (profit) maximization, whereas a cooperative or a savings bank aims at maximizing the value for a larger set of stakeholders; that is to provide the best products and services to its clients, who in the case of the cooperative are also its members. Because of the different ultimate goals, banks’ efficiency should not be judged exclusively through financial figures but instead it can be looked at from different perspectives. First, efficiency can be viewed as organizational efficiency involving organizational goals, resources, and business performance. Second, it may be viewed as pure financial efficiency pertaining to the .
