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Building societies developed in the second half of the 18th century when country people came flooding into the towns and cities to provide the workforce for the new factories. Faced with a lack of suitable housing in industrial centres, more enterprising and prosperous workers clubbed together to build their own homes. The first building society was established in Birmingham in 1775.

Legislative changes have opened up new opportunities for building societies in Britain to operate as retail banks offering a wide range of services. These organisations have operated very successfully in their traditional role for many years and have acquired a favourable generic image. The factors underlying consumer perceptions of the images of building societies are explored and compared with those relating to banks. Findings are presented to suggest that, although the building societies retain a generally favourable image, there are aspects of it that may hinder their successful operation in new markets. There is no evidence of the existence of distinct images for particular societies. Possible marketing implications of the findings are considered.

Presents the results of an empirical study that investigates comparatively the mortgage‐pricing determinants of national, regional and local building societies. Considers and discusses the importance of the three main generic strategies (focus, differentiation and cost leadership) and building societies′ main pricing objectives – profit margins, market share, and mutuality. The findings suggest that building societies′ mortgage pricing is influenced primarily by internal industry determinants – such as “costs” and “competitors′ prices” – and to a lesser extent by market‐related factors (customers′ perception of value and elasticity of demand). A large majority of building societies view profit margins, rather than market share, as their primary pricing objective. In order to facilitate this pricing objective, societies select strategies that match their size and market characteristics. Local building societies employ primarily a focus strategy, while national and regional building societies aim at achieving their profit margins mainly through differentiation and cost leadership strategies.

Building societies, as we illustrated in the Preface, occupy an important position in the British financial system. There are at present over four hundred societies although this industry is highly concentrated, with the ten largest societies (with well developed branch networks) in 1978 accounting for 66 per cent of the total assets.

To investigate empirically the salience, and significance, of generic identity (industry‐wide identity) within the British Building Society Movement.

A qualitative, explanatory study drawing on the principles of grounded theory/case‐study research design.

The study confirmed the survival/existence of an industry‐wide identity and found this identity type to be of considerable significance and strength. The antecedents of the industry's identity were shown to be a common historical legacy; strong industry culture; effect of regulation; and industry responsiveness to threats. The study builds on the earlier work of Balmer regarding generic image and identity and confirms the salience of the “historicity” of identity articulated by Moingeon and Ramanantsoa. It broadly supports Albert and Whetten's categorisation of identity except with regard to enduringness. In this regard the research found Gioia's notion of adaptive instability to be salient.

The management of generic identity is of crucial importance. Changes of corporate identity need to take account of the generic identity.

The first major empirical study of generic identity and, as such, the first empirical study of industry identity within the financial services sector.

This article has an explicit purpose of making a theoretical contribution to the issue of senior management cognitions of the corporate identity/corporate strategy interface. The aim of this research is to particularise the nature and saliency of this interface to corporate marketing scholars and practitioners alike.

This article adopts a grounded theory methodology and is informed by three in depth case studies undertaken among three building societies (mutuals) operating within the British Financial Services Industry.

The results confirm the saliency of the corporate identity/corporate strategy dyad vis‐a‐vis the comprehension and management of contemporary organisation. Theoretically, the study finds that senior management's cognitions of the corporate identity/strategy interface are interdependent, symbiotic and dynamic in nature: the nature of the dyad differed among the three institutions examined. In terms of the nascent domain of corporate marketing, this study confirms the extant literature, which suggests that, in addition to comprehending the psychology of customers and other stakeholders, the psychology of senior managers is also highly germane.

Within corporate marketing contexts, organisations should be mindful of the critical importance of the corporate identity/strategy interface; a concern for the above should be an important part of their corporate marketing as well as regulatory and strategic deliberations. However, senior managers should note the inherent dangers to identity maintenance where material alignment between corporate identity and strategy is ignored and where cognitive alignment is adopted as a surrogate: the former entails a synchronisation of facts whereas the latter entails the calibration of beliefs vis‐à‐vis corporate identity and strategy.

This is a major theory‐building study, which examines managerial cognitions of the corporate identity/strategy interface and a major study of its type within the British Building Society sector.

This monograph covers a number of key articles and presentations by the author over the last decade. The points contained in them reflect a clear belief based on experience of creating significant cultural change so that banks become more market‐driven and customer‐orientated. Many of the forecasts made in the articles have become a reality in the marketplace. This monograph begins with a description of changes over the last decade: the introduction of the marketing function into banks, consumer responses, new competitors, technological developments, and the impact of Government. Marketing has faced many difficulties in the banking industry and competitive breakthroughs have not been easy to achieve. Many leaders in the industry believe in business/marketing strategy evolving in close association with IT planning – this is the second topic, IT support may be crucial. The importance of advertising and management of agency relationships is the subject of Chapter 3 – how can it be effectively used? Chapter 4 looks at the ways in which the consumer is presently getting a better deal; Chapter 5 describes the marketing success of the NatWest Piggy Bank within the context of a changing marketing culture. A wider repertoire of marketing techniques are used in the USA (Chapter 6) but if they are to be used in the same way here then the situation will need to approximate more closely to that of the USA – credit and credit cards are the particular focus and the US market is more aggressive. Chapters 7‐9 look at the future of financial services marketing from the retailer′s perspective – the retailer′s detailed approach to a possible new business has distinctive strengths, but their actual opportunities in this market may be restricted to an extent by, for example, inexperience and so lower credibility as vendors of some specialised services like investment management. Chapter 10 appraises the value and strategic nature of market research. Chapter 11 considers the movement of building societies into the wider personal financial services marketplace, the product′s role in the marketing mix, and the impact of the Single Market in Europe. Chapter 12 singles out the cost‐effective technique of automated vetting of customers′ creditworthiness from the special viewpoint of the building society. The monograph concludes with a discussion of the changing market and future prospects: the world of finance is no longer simple; money is no longer the common denominator; the consumer is now the focus; competition to provide services is fierce; the future is exciting!

The objective of this paper is to report a case study investigating how organizational identity evolves during institutional change within a UK building society.

The paper employs an inductive case study, which is appropriate for examining such change processes. It builds on grounded theory, considered appropriate for such an explanatory research.

The paper finds that: institutional change, especially regulation and practice changes, serves as the trigger to increasing salience of identity issues, i.e. identity ambiguity, legitimacy crisis and perceived identity obsolescence; leadership, organizational culture and strategic exercises are salient apparatuses to tackle identity problems caused by external pressure; and a new identity is formed as a result of the managerial interventions, characterised by the rediscovery of historical roots, modernization and dualism.

The paper provides an account of identity change, given a broader business environment change context within which the organization operates. Utilizing qualitative study of one case may be taken as a limitation.

The theoretical contribution reflected in the findings has implications for the interfaces between identity and institutional environment and organizational culture.

Changes in the financial services sector, brought about by new legislation and increased competition, have led to many institutions turning to marketing as a means of adjustment. Building societies, in particular, have been placed in a situation where the development of marketing is crucial to corporate performance. In this scenario, marketing information systems should serve to underpin and strengthen the marketing concept in its implementation phase. Suggests, via empirical evidence, that current strategies deployed by smaller building societies for the development of marketing information systems may actually fall short in terms of marketing intelligence.

White‐collar trade unionism has aroused considerable interest among students of industrial relations, but relatively little attention has been paid to staff associations, which Crompton noted perform similar functions to trade unions and to which white‐collar workers are partial. At present, white‐collar and partly white‐collar unions account for roughly half of the unions in Britain and some 35 per cent of the membership. The density of white‐collar membership has increased to 40 per cent (over 50 per cent if staff and professional associations are included), compared with 53 per cent for manual workers. White‐collar workers are traditionally thought to be less disposed to join trade unions and, as Bain et al note, “when white collar workers do unionize, they are believed to carry with them certain aspects of the status ideology which affects the behaviour of their unions”. Blackburn and Prandy offer a theoretical framework which may be used to compare the “unionateness” of white‐collar and manual forms of employee representation. Most white‐collar unions satisfy the criteria of unionateness, but a large proportion of staff associations fail on the question of independence from employers for the purposes of negotiation. In the first four years of his appointment, the Certification Officer refused certificates of independence to fifty‐one organisations, all of them staff associations.