Search

This qualitative case study explores how situated rationality is achieved and maintained between two coexisting institutional logics, ‘global’ financial efficiency and ‘local’ customer-owners, around a performance measurement system in a large cooperative bank. We focus especially on the relationship between financial performance measures and softer, cooperative and communal organisational values. The results highlight that communal values may be effectively used to smooth and manage managerial contradictions; thus, situated rationality for operations can be achieved and maintained. This may also explain the resilience and success of communal values and cooperatively formed organisations in markets, even though the efficiency of such organisations is sometimes doubted. This also indicates the potential of alternative, more responsible and moderate modes of banking and finance for healing some of the problems of an extreme style of capitalism. peerReviewed

In this chapter we analyze how local member banks shifted from local, vernacular, accounting, and performance measurement systems to centralized and standardized performance measurement systems in a cooperative bank organization. The member banks reduced the use of vernacular accounting systems (VAS) to achieve greater cost-efficiency and to meet regulation requirements, but they still maintained their strong local logics beside the cooperative unity logic, with only minimal or moderate conflict. We suggest that the power of individual actors, i.e., CEOs, affected the balance of these logics, and the way performance measurement (PM) targets were chosen at the local level from the standardized template. We found that the feeling of autonomy maintained by the member banks after the centralization aided the standardization. Moreover, we contribute to recent digitalization discussions and suggest that if a centralized accounting system provided by the group supports the local values, the local actors are more willing to adapt the system and reduce their use of VAS. peerReviewed

This paper analyses the profitability of Finnish cooperative banks during the period of negative nominal interest rates. Contrary to expectations, the continuous decline in money market interest rates between 2009 and 2014, and the following negative rate era, did not have adverse effects on the profitability of banks at the beginning of negative interest rate period. Based on especially using a risk-adjusted measure for bank profitability, these results contrast with previous findings. In our findings, the increasing wholesale funding (WSF) ratio seems to be an important factor. However, after 2017 the banks have not been able to improve especially their risk-adjusted profitability so strongly anymore, because the WSF and the development of other than net interest margin returns have been in negative connection to it. In addition, the unconventional monetary policy actions seem not to improve profitability in the most recent observations of our data. These results raise serious concerns for the future of bank profitability during the prolonged period of negative interest rates. peerReviewed

Yritysten ja yhteiskunnan välinen suhde on monitahoinen ilmiö, jota voidaan lähestyä lukuisista näkökulmista. Yritykset ovat erottamaton osa yhteiskuntaa, eivät siitä erillisiä. Tässä artikkelissa tarkastelemme suomalaisittain merkittävän osuustoiminnallisen organisaation kehityksen kytkeytymistä hyvinvointiyhteiskunnan kehitykseen vastuullisuuden näkökulmasta. Vastuullisuus sateenvarjokäsitteenä kattaa usein synonyymisesti käytetyt yhteiskuntavastuun ja yritysvastuun käsitteet. Tarkastelumme kohteena on suomalainen osuuskuntamuotoinen finanssialan pankkiorganisaatio, OP Ryhmä. Osuuskuntamuotoisen organisaation on arvopohjansa perusteella lunastettava useita vastuullisuuteen liittyviä odotuksia, ja sen perusluonteeseen kuuluu yhteiskuntavastuun kantaminen. Kyseessä on case-tarkastelu, jonka aineistona on käytetty lehtijuttuja (Kauppalehti, Helsingin Sanomat) ja OP Ryhmän omaa uutisointia sekä tiedotteita. Tulosten perusteella huomataan, että OP Ryhmällä ja sen osuuspankeilla on läpi historiansa ollut merkitystä paikallisesti ja yhteiskunnallisesti merkittäviin asioihin. Vaikka tässä analyysissa on tarkastelu pääosin pankkitoimintaa, joka on yhteiskunnallisesti – niin taloudellisesti kuin laajemminkin – kriittisen tärkeä toimiala, voi olla, että osuustoiminnan mahdollisuuksia hyvinvointivaltion lujittajana ei vielä täysin ymmärretä. nonPeerReviewed