An Exploration of Culture in the UK Financial Services

This thesis explores dimensions of culture in the UK financial services. Through narrative interviews, it considers the experience of the industry and examines how culture can be formed through influences stemming both from the industry’s internal dynamics and wider societal contexts. The study analyses how the dimensions of culture might influence behaviours that have had an effect on the UK’s economy, such as the global financial crisis of 2008. The study further questions whether the crash was the product of the culture that existed before the crisis and which persists within the industry. The overall system – consisting of consumers, firms, regulators and governments – is taken into consideration. This is a select yet focused study and the unit of analysis is individual narrative interviews, through which the study attempts to access some of the systemic dynamics that may be present in the industry. The study does not claim to define culture in a singular sense, in what is a complex and diverse industry; instead, it attempts to draw out key themes from the data set that could shed light on the dimensions of culture. This study uses a systems psychodynamics approach, which takes into account the idea of unconscious group dynamics and open systems. Grounded theory has been employed to analyse the data and form a theoretical understanding