"The computer says no” : the demise of the traditional bank manager and the depersonalisation of British banking, 1960-2010 Vik, PM http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2016.1177024 Title "The computer says no” : the demise of the traditional bank manager and the depersonalisation of British banking, 1960-2010 Authors Vik, PM Type Article URL This version is available at: http://usir.salford.ac.uk/id/eprint/38700/ Published Date 2016 USIR is a digital collection of the research output of the University of Salford. Where copyright permits, full text material held in the repository is made freely available online and can be read, downloaded and copied for non-commercial private study or research purposes. Please check the manuscript for any further copyright restrictions. For more information, including our policy and submission procedure, please contact the Repository Team at:
[email protected]. “The computer says no”: the demise of the traditional bank manager and the depersonalisation of British banking, 1960-2010 This article examines the role of the British bank branch manager in the context of the transformation of banking since the 1980s and discusses its implications for British banking. The analysis was based on interviews with retired bank managers and suggests that they viewed their role as being was based on skill, authority and autonomy. The centralisation of authority and increasing targets deskilled and disempowered their profession. Drawing on Weber’s theory of bureaucratisation, this article argues that the loss of agency of managers depersonalised service provision as they no longer could base their decisions on personal considerations.