Constructing Boland Bank: organizational change and transformation in the South African trust company movement, c.1940-c.1970

摘要

The embedded South African Trust Company narrative of being the aristocracy of local South African financial institutions that rested on their long history of financial stability, conservatism and trustworthiness in the absence of any form of statutory regulatory control became outdated in the post-Depression and Second World War period. This article traces and analyzes the attempts at a process of organizational and managerial change aimed at modernization through amalgamation (mergers) and diversification. It draws on the Pettigrew tradition of a processual and contextualist approach with its elements of content, context and process. Moreover, the study is influenced by the role of change through narration, which has received support within the field of Management Studies in the last two decades. The way these managers narrated about the necessity for change and its content is an important focus as it highlights change through thick description. In the case of the trust companies, the main drivers for change were not only provided by internal but also external factors -the Registrar of Banks. This is an important difference to the framework that focuses primarily on internal mechanisms and agents in explaining organizational change.