Sidsel Lond Grosen

Working with standards—post-crisis positioning of bank advisors

Taking recent developments in the financial sector as its point of departure, this article examines how bank advisors are positioned. Increased complexity in banking products and the risk orientation that has followed the financial crisis make demands on the quality of advice. Drawing on qualitative interview studies in two Danish banks, the article questions whether the dominant understanding of bank advisors as primarily sales persons comprises their current positioning. Contradictory demands on bank advisors emerge in the simultaneous emphasis on advisory aspects of the work and in the imposition of new standard procedures; while one points to a positioning as professional advisors, the other tends to undermine it and makes the positioning ambiguous.

Associational control: Between self-management and standardization in the financial sector

Over the last 30 years, the concept of control has had a central position in research into the psychological working environment. Control has been understood as individual autonomy and individual opportunities for development. This article examines whether the concept of control has the same key significance in the modern workplace which is simultaneously characterized by self-management and standardization. It is concluded that the concept of control remains important, but needs to evolve from its focus on the work of individuals to a focus on the associational aspects of work if it is to retain its critical potential. This conclusion is supported by case studies of four Danish banks.