Paper short abstract:

Between 2016-22 ethnographers in the UK engaged the financial industry through a unique intervention that mobilized research methods training for improvement in cultural and ethical standards. The experience could provide useful guidance for anthropologists in other industries and contexts.

Paper long abstract:

Over the past two decades, financial service practitioners and organizations in the UK have provided fertile ground for ethnographic and anthropological research, and the experience could provide useful guidance for anthropologists in other industries and contexts. As in other consumer product industries, large banks like JP Morgan have over the past years engaged ethnographers in user experience (UX) studies that assist with improvements in financial product design. But in addition to this, and between 2016-22, ethnographers in the UK engaged the financial industry through a unique form of intervention that mobilized research methods training for the purpose of improvement in cultural and ethical standards across the industry. The intervention was orchestrated by an independent industry body, the Financial Services Culture Board (FSCB), and it engaged an academic ethnographer to provide three training programmes in ethnography and fieldwork. Indeed, the intervention was part of the FSCB’s mandate, founded following a report by the UK Parliament that identified a need to improve professional standards, and included the administration of an industry survey on bank culture. My roundtable presentation will consider what aspects of the ethnographic interventions proved effective, which aspects did not, and the general lessons that can be derived. Effective elements include the existence of a host organisation like the FSCB that managed the relationship between the ethnographer and the banks, the development of a new approach to cultural intervention that reflexively addressed the corporations' own challenges, an exceptional historical context that called for new approaches to industry interventions.