The appropriate banker and the need for ontological re-positioning

Abstract

It is obvious that the bankers of this world have failed miserably. Top managers have failed to know what was going on in their organization (or worse). At lower levels of bank the employees have failed to realize that they were gambling with other people’s money. Professionally and morally the financial crisis is a disaster. The problems for regulators and scholars are profound. There are compelling reasons to seek new bearings by re-positioning the banker as a responsible person in a socially responsible industry. Such re-positioning is an exercise in ontological reasoning on “the appropriate banker”. It uses actor-network-theory, dialogue studies, virtue ethics, and a socio-cultural approach to learn to build a model to guide observation of bankers in action. In her practice the main risk for the appropriate banker is ‘disconnect’ (not listed among the risks bank management systems should model).