‘Customers were not objects to suck blood from’: Social relations in UK retail banks under changing performance management systems

Knut Laaser

Industrial Relations Journal, 2019, vol. 50, issue 5-6, 532-547

Abstract: Utilising an analytical framework informed by a moral economy approach, this article examines the social relationships between bank workers and customers in the context of changing performance management. Informed by 46 in‐depth interviews with branch workers and branch managers from UK banks, this article focusses on the interplay of the pressures arising from an intensified and all‐encompassing performance management system and bank workers lay morality. The article seeks to analyse why one group of bank workers engages with customers in a primarily instrumental manner, while another group tends to mediate and engage in oppositional practices which aim to avoid such an instrumentalisation. The article argues that moral economy gives voice to the agency of workers and the critical concerns of the social, economic and moral consequences of market‐driven and purely profit‐oriented workplace regimes.

Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/irj.12267

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:indrel:v:50:y:2019:i:5-6:p:532-547

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0019-8692

Access Statistics for this article

Industrial Relations Journal is currently edited by Peter Nolan

More articles in Industrial Relations Journal from Wiley Blackwell
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().