Techno-Organizational Diversity, Network Topologies and the Manageability of Banks

As the Economist wrote (10 October 2009), ‘Big banks are as close as businesses can get to being unmanageable.’ The same fears have been expressed in a more pejorative tone by Paul Tucker, the Deputy Governor of the Bank of England: ‘Complex structures rendering a bank unsupervisable must not be permitted’ (House of Commons Treasury Committee 2009). These remarks should draw our attention also to questions concerning the organizational side of managerial uncertainties. Overcoming uncertainties in banking and finance is of course at the heart of managerial practices. The organization of uncertainty, through the use of schematic representations of ideas about prospective outcomes of action, is a crucial aspect of disputes on manageability (Power 2007). Risk models, like the famous Black-Scholes formula, VAR (value-at-risk) models and other tools of financial engineering can be obvious ways to conceive such schematizations. However uncertainty in banking and finance has not solely to do with the valuation of assets. Its causes can be searched for also in the diversity of financial operations and in the complexity of their organizational dynamics. In spite of the rich and vibrant organizational landscapes of the banks, especially since the early 1990s, risk perception remains overwhelmingly bound to accounting-objects. To this category belong also models for the valuation of derivatives and the related assessment of market, credit and liquidity risks (see MacKenzie in this volume).