Beyond Organizational Change: Structure, Discourse and Power in UK Financial Services

312 Pages·2000·2.018 MB·English

by  Glenn Morgan, Andrew Sturdy (auth.)

BEYOND ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE
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Beyond
Organizational Change
Structure, Discourse and Power in
UK Financial Services
Glenn Morgan
and
Andrew Sturdy
First published in Great Britain 2000 by
MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and London
Companies and representatives throughout the world
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978-1-349-38967-4 ISBN 978-0-230-80005-2 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9780230800052
First published in the United States of America 2000 by
ST. MARTIN’S PRESS, INC.,
Scholarly and Reference Division,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Morgan, Glenn.
Beyond organizational change: structure, discourse and power in UK financial
services / Glenn Morgan and Andrew Sturdy.
p. cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Financial services industry—Great Britain. 2. Organizational change—
Great Britain.
I. Sturdy, Andrew. II. Title.
HG186.G7 M63 2000
332. 1′068′4—dc21 00–021165
© Glenn Morgan and Andrew Sturdy 2000
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made
without written permission.
No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with
written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by
the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London WIP0LP.
Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to
criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in accordance
with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and
sustained forest sources.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 00
Contents
List of Tables vi
Acknowledgements vii
Part I Introduction
1 The Social Approach to Organizational Change 3
Part II The Organizational Field of UK Financial Services
2 Money, Financial Institutions and the Social Order 43
3 National and International Money: Restructuring
British Financial Institutions 72
Part III Changing Discourses: Process and Outcomes
4 Introducing Strategic Discourse 121
5 Strategy Discourse and Financial Services: Enter the
Management Consultants and IT 137
6 Marketing Discourse: Its Emergence and Contradictions 160
7 Changing Work Experiences and Practices: From Black Coats
to Service Smiles 190
Part IV The Emerging Organizational Field
8 Transformation and Change in Financial Services 221
9 Conclusion 252
Bibliography 271
Index 299
v
List of Tables
7.1 Changes in retail financial services 193
7.2 Average weekly salaries of banking and insurance clerks,
London 1929–30 195
vi
Acknowledgements
This book is the product of many years’ work since we started exploring
financial services in the mid-1980s. In this time, we have conducted
research projects in numerous companies and with a number of col-
leagues in different universities in the UK and overseas. Over that
period, we have published a number of papers on aspects of financial
services in the UK and elsewhere. Many of the arguments of those
papers have been incorporated in this book. However, the book goes
further in developing a historical and theoretical account of processes
of change in financial services. Therefore, we hope that even for those
familiar with our previous work, this book will provide a new perspect-
ive on the theoretical and empirical problems which we address.
This work began at the Financial Services Research Centre (FSRC)
at UMIST in the late 1980s when we both spent a number of years
working there. David Knights who led the FSRC has undoubtedly done
more than anybody else in the UK to show that the study of retail finan-
cial services organizations can be made ‘critical’. Many of the ideas in
the book have arisen out of conversations, debates and arguments with
David over the years. We would also like to thank other colleagues in
and around the FSRC during those years for their comments and sup-
port, particularly Hugh Willmott, Helen Dean, Fergus Murray, Chris
Grey and Deborah Kerfoot. Since we both left UMIST in 1992, our
ideas have been influenced by confrontations and debates with other
perspectives. Glenn Morgan would particularly like to thank Richard
Whitley (Manchester Business School), Peer Hull Kristensen (Copen-
hagen Business School) and Sigrid Quack (Wissenschaftszentrum, Ber-
lin) for their advice and support. Similarly, Andrew Sturdy is grateful to
Barry Wilkinson and Stephen Fineman (Bath School of Management).
Last, but by no means least, we are grateful for the invaluable support
of family and friends, Alison Morgan and Heather McCallum in particular.
GLENN MORGAN
ANDREW STURDY
vii
Part I
Introduction
1 The Social Approach to
Organizational Change
INTRODUCTION
Over the last two decades, the issue of organizational change has
assumed central importance within the study of business and man-
agement. Indeed, sometimes one might imagine that radical change is
a new experience or observation in the history of work and employ-
ment. Particular attention has been given to broad changes – the pace
of technological ‘development’, the internationalization of markets and
the emergence of new competitors – as well as the ways in which organ-
izations are (re-)building their structures, strategies and cultures in
order to adapt to and shape the new circumstances. How such organiza-
tional changes are achieved and the conditions of their emergence and,
for many, ‘success’ have become central questions for organization and
management theory. In this introduction, we present a critical exam-
ination of some of the main approaches to these issues. We then go
on to outline a largely separate literature which has informed our own
approach and introduce how it has been developed in the analysis of
change in the UK financial services sector.
This book is designed to contribute to the understanding of the nature
and management of change at two levels. Firstly, we believe it offers a
distinctive and valuable approach to the study of organizational change.
Secondly we believe it offers a range of insights into the process of
change that has occurred over the last two decades within one of the
UK’s major sectors – financial services. Our hope is that by the end of
the book, the reader will have been challenged to think about organiza-
tional change in new ways through an exploration of the continuing
emergence of management knowledges and practices, especially those
which have come to be associated with ‘strategy’. We examine their
institutional domains and dynamics, tensions and contradictions and
subjective experience and outcomes. In doing so, we seek to go beyond
organizational change, as it is commonly perceived, in two senses.
Firstly, organizations are not our prime focus, but the institutions, dis-
courses and identities which sustain and transform them in a particular
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