Inside banks' information and control systems: Post-decision surprise and corporate disruption
Authors: Eastburn, Ronald W.; Boland, Richard J.
Journal: Information and Organization (2015)
DOI: 10.1016/j.infoandorg.2015.05.001
In response to the catastrophic outcome of the 2008–2009 Financial Crisis we report on a qualitative study of decision maker surprise in the banking industry. Banks use a remarkably sophisticated ensemble of information technologies for supporting their management control systems and enabling oversight by government regulators and industry watchdogs. Banks depend on a global network of data processing and information systems to provide their core banking services and to manage the complex financial and macroeconomic elements of their environment. They are also subject to federal and/or state oversight, which includes on-site examinations and quarterly financial data monitoring, to reaffirm their safety and soundness. Yet, the financial crisis caught them unawares. To get behind the headlines of the crisis, we opted to not study crisis decisions overtly, but rather to explore bankers' general ability to interpret the data that they were receiving via their information technologies and observations and to follow a number of crisis and non-crisis decisions that had surprise outcomes for them. Our focus is on understanding the context, process and patterns of decisions that resulted i…