Calculus trust. Calculus trust considers the information passed; the source are social experience and past own experience with the specific firm. Information for this trust can also be based on tests of quality, guarantees, and findings. Calculation is one of the main elements of consumer trust; retail banks employ certain concepts to support this confidence building.

Institutional trust. Institutional trust plays a crucial role in the banking business in general and in retail banking in particular. This trust modification is based on activities of customer organizations and existing legal regulations. According to BAUER et al (2007) institutional trust combines two aspects, one aspect concentrates on persons and another aspect focuses on their position within the society. Trust in bank employees is simultaneously trust in financial institutions when, for example customers assume that the bank employee in the local branch or in the call centre will render them the services which they can expect in legal terms (based on their contracts). This assumption is not based on results of interpersonal experiences – though it can be affected by those – but on induction from other experiences. Hence trusting in specific types of organizations, i.e. banks, in terms of an institution in everyday life means to bind a specific situation to a particular framework.

Personal trust. Personal trust represents the third alteration of trust. NOOTEBOOM and SIX (2003) highlight that developing trust in the form of personal trust requires substantial efforts on the part of the individual actors. BAUER et al (2007) define personal trust as trust in already existing relationships. Like calculus trust this trust form is based on experience. GIRMSCHEID and BROCKMANN (2005) call this trust as “history based trust”. But personal trust is based on a specific strand of experience which is independent to other strands and includes a degree of generalization of experiences. GRUDZEWSKI et al (2008) argue that in personal trust the customer fully believes in a given brand and the brand’s controls.

In this trust situation the customer perceives all undesirable situations or circumstances as something very rare. This belief in the overall brand can arise because of a sound long term relationship between retail bank and customer. This is in line with a small relation between age of the customer and personal trust. According to WITTMANM et al (2008) the effect of age is not significant in terms of personal trust; however it was observed that the following tendency exists: the older a person is, the more reluctant he is to be willing to trust.

Here are some impressions from the conference and from Dubai:

During the conference

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For the Android-people I would like offer this recommendation: In the Android market you can find a very good app called Dubai City Guide, which offers maps, photos, recommendations including phone numbers and website. Features include

- A guide covering the top things to do in Dubai
- Map of Dubai
- 100% offline – including maps
- Augmented reality
- Sharing functions
- Travel itinerary

Here you can watch a small clip “above” the Dubai Fountain from the perspective of the At.mosphere Lounge (app. 440 m over ground)

BBC News – Q&A: Greek debt crisis.

Some impressions from the fair ground:

Women’s quotas are mainly discussed in the context of necessary changes in the way business is done. Women are said to have a different management style and hence, a higher proportion of women in top management would change management culture. This idea became even higher priority with the current financial crisis, which is partly attributed to greedy (male) managers.
I will not discuss here my personal opinion about the chances for better management decisions due to a higher number of female managers. Neither will I elaborate about my opinion as a woman on the question if all these initiatives are what women need for their careers. Nevertheless, women’s quotas are related to questions of corporate government, regulation and sustainability and thus are part of some important megatrends. Hence, businesses are well advised to think about this seriously.

The first question of course is to decide whether this trend is relevant for a particular business. As far as political regulation is concerned, this may depend on the country and the size or legal form of the corporation. But even if there is no legislation pending on this, public opinion could still force businesses to deal with women’s quotas. It is advisable to do a careful stakeholder analysis on the intentions and power of stakeholder groups that may have an impact here. Such are press and media, trade unions, lobby groups and other special interest groups.
If the proportion of women in top management seems to become relevant for a business in future, some more questions arise:

• If a business needs more female managers – where would they come from?
• Is there enough female talent around? What is the proportion of women in the industry and in relevant study courses?
• What is the typical career path of women in that industry? To what level of management do they normally get? Why do most women not reach higher management levels? Do they want to advance further in their careers at all?
• Are there other female talent pools, i.e. other countries or industries?
• How could it be made easier for women to reach top management? I think the typical mentoring programmes and dedicated training courses will not be enough. Rather, questions of work-life-balance and reconciling work and family life need to be addressed.
• What if all efforts to attract a sufficient number of sufficiently qualified women fail?
• And last but not least: What do you do with all the men who aspire to a management position that is now dedicated to women? Over the last decades it has already become much harder to get a position in higher management due to strategies of lean management and flat hierarchies. Women’s quota initiatives will invite even more participants to the race for an unchanged number of positions.

Today we have to answer the question whether (at all) and to what extent this opportunity has been exploited. VENKATRAMAN and MADASU (2009) argue that parts of the risks management systems and approaches in some banks were more on paper than in practice. The challenge in the next few years (still!) is to identify the right course for the long term in terms of greater transparency, effective regulation and appropriate tolerance for business growth. The general risk was that under the impression of the first turmoil, the primary focus is on trying to reduce the particular weaknesses only which caused the specific failures at hand. 3 years later we have to conclude that some major players in the market (i.e. SOG, UBS) did not make their homework. Even a triple A rating has a small default risk, but definitely not zero. Furthermore banks have to address the question whether they should rely their investment decisions on a rating only (compare S&P “Are Credit Ratings indicators of investment merit?“…..
In evaluating an investment, investors should consider, in addition to credit quality, the current make-up of their portfolios, their investment strategy and time horizon, their tolerance for risk, and an estimation of the security’s relative value in comparison to other securities they might choose.”)

Financial service organizations that focus on long term and sustainable success require an operating environment with regulatory conditions which support two objectives simultaneously: They offer a protection against turmoil and also support the efficiency of the sector by an appropriate combination of stability, a level playing field, and the possibility to perform. Furthermore it is essential that all regulatory bodies have the organizational resources to monitor a sound application of regulatory requirements and to identify malpractice of regulatory gaps. This in sum can be the best means of preventing crisis.

10. Time-wasting
Giving your IT team the latest smartphones to communicate better is a great idea, but you need to be careful about monitoring their usage. Yes, you want this tech to help them do their jobs better, but you don’t want them to be playing Angry Birds all day. Before you start handing out iPhones or HTC Desires, be sure you can keep a lid on any time-wasting that may occur as a result.

9. Theft from the workplace

When a company starts investing in the latest ‘must-have’ consumer gadgets, they can unfortunately make themselves the target of thieves. Where there are expensive items, there are eager eyes. You can avoid theft from the workplace in a number of ways, so be sure you’re covered before you deploy the latest consumer tech.

8. Security of internal documents and files

Lots of companies give their employees the latest laptops, phones, or other gadgets, because they are fit for purpose – they help get the job done well. But if your employees take these gadgets home, they’re also taking files and documents which may be dangerous in the wrong hands – so make sure you have measures in place to keep your data safe.

7. Protection of company logins/passwords

As with the above point, your new consumer tech may be password protected, but that doesn’t mean it’s 100% safe. Be sure your employees don’t have ‘auto-login’ or similar enabled or you could be making your company vulnerable.

6. Key benefits to the company

Before handing out iPads to all, make sure that they will benefit the company. It’s very tempting to get ahead of your competitors in terms of tech, but you must be sure it’s worth your initial investment. Nobody likes to waste money, after all.

5. Non-consumer alternatives

Consumer tech is great, but sometimes companies release corporate versions which are more suited to the workplace. Operating systems, for example, frequently provide ‘professional’ versions for the workplace. Do your homework so you invest in the right product for you.

4. How much time will be dedicated to these devices?

This goes hand-in-hand with time-wasting. Will these new devices be worth the time they take up? Try to balance the benefits they provide to your IT team with the amount of time they take up in a working day. A test run is a good way to be sure of this.

3. Technical support

Consumer electronics usually have dedicated tech support, but not necessarily tailored to businesses. If you have a large scale issue, you want to be sure you’re covered – so do your research first!

2. Where to draw the line

Know the difference between a useful business gadget and a ‘boy’s toy’. Your employees will welcome the latest tech, but you need to be sure it’s for the right reasons. Your business success should be your first priority.

1. General security
The number one consideration should always be the safety and security of your company. If consumer electronics open you up to hacking or loss of sensitive data – simply do not take the risk, look at corporate alternatives instead.

Note: Eddielogic thanks Susan Black, our guest author for this post.

MINTZBERG (2000) criticizes the assumed equation between strategic planning and strategic thinking and describes different fallacies in terms of predetermination, detachment and formalization. He argues that the development of strategies “…requires insight, creativity, and synthesis, the very things that the formalization of planning discourages”.

HAMEL and PRAHALAD (1995) establish a border between an analytical, reproductive understanding of strategy formation; instead they employ the terms “imagination” and “foresight” and recommend focusing on the creation of new business segments and new value creation systems. LINDA, ROSS and VICTOR (2001) argue that “imagination is the capacity to form mental presentations, motivated by our emotional responses to the word surrounding us…”. ROSS and BART (1998) see three meanings for the term imagination. A representational imagination seeks, identifies and defines frames and regularities; hence it manages and reduces environmental complexity. A productive imagination develops new and original opportunities through a combination, recombination or transformation of things or concepts. Existing ideas and concept represent the raw material in order to develop new ideas. In this perspective productive imagination is creative imagination.

The parodic imagination contains a deconstruction of what one perceives as the real world. It negates and reconstructs existing ideas and constructs by breaking rules and borderlines, it defames, contradicts, and destroys the clarity generated by representation. This type of imagination is closely related, but not equal to creativity. It is distinct from fantasy, too. LECHNER and MÜLLER-STEWENS (1999) argue that the parodic imagination has the largest potential to form a new strategy.

WESTLEY (1990) focuses on the linguistic contact between different management groupings. He introduces the term strategic conversation and defines it as “verbal interactions within superior-subordinate dyads focusing on strategic generalities”. A distinction is made between three dimensions: Firstly the dynamic to involve or to exclude subordinates in conversations with strategic content, secondly the dynamics of dominance and submission and thirdly the relationships between strategic conversations and the role of contextual factors, i.e. coalitions, predominant corporate doctrine. KNIGHTS and MORGAN (1991) highlights also the importance of language and recommend understanding strategies as “corporate strategy as a set of discourses and practices which transform managers and employees alike into subjects who secure their sense of purpose and reality by formulating, evaluating and conducting strategy”. Social practice and strategic relevant discourses create a process for social construction of reality, offering the chance to achieve a lock-in of participants. Due to this lock-in organizations are able to achieve the strengths to meet demands.

VON KROGH and ROOS (1995) make a distinction between operative conversation and strategic conversation. Operational conversations deal with day-to-day business operations in a standardized approach and have a limited scope. Opposite to this strategic conversations have the objective to shape the corporate future. Hence a creative language is required that quests existing borderlines and which enables to manage a variety of topics. Since suggestiveness and dialogic discussions are attributes of this conversation, this kind of language requires different rules of conversation. VON KROGH and ROOS (1995) argue that due the dominance of operational conversations companies have to learn strategic conversations. STRONG (2005) sees discussions as one tool to ensure creative thinking.

In summary it can be argued that strategic conversations and strategic discourses represent important vehicles in terms of strategy formation in ambiguous situations.

Sustainability is basically not that new. In 1987 the word was presented in a UN report by the former Norwegian Prime Minister G.H. Brundtland. Brundtland presented a definition for sustainable development as “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. Transferred to enterprises and organizations, a sound and holistic sustainability strategy has the following attributes. It drives several different strategies:

• A bottom line strategy to save costs, i.e. by reducing materials consumption.
• A top-line strategy to reach a new customer base.
• A talent strategy to win, hold and develop employees, customers and the surrounding community.

Hence a holistic sustainability addresses 4 coequal components:

• Economic (in the sense of operating profitability, this considers that organizations have economic needs),
• Social (in the sense that actions and conditions will affect members of the society),
• Cultural (in the sense of valuing and protecting cultural diversity) and last but not least
• Environmental (in the sense of protecting and retaining the ecosystem)

It has to be taken into account that environmental and social issues affecting an organization can be subdivided into 3 different categories:

1. General social issues: These issues are important to the society. But the organization is not able to influence them.
2. Value chain social issues: These issues are affected by the organizations’ measures and activities.
3. Social dimensions of competitive issues: Issues and matters in the external environment which have an impact on the drivers of competitiveness where the organization runs its business.