A key research question is “How do we effectively evaluate credit union employees’ attitudes about credit unions?” The answer came from an unlikely place. Increasingly, researchers in organizational behavior have studied organizational cultures using techniques borrowed from anthropologists, who study not only familiar but also alien cultures, and have developed strong techniques for assessing these cultures. In recent years, anthropologists have begun to bring these skills to the study of business cultures. The Filene Research Institute, therefore, thought it was time to test these methodologies to the world of credit unions. The purpose of this pilot study, then, was to see first-hand what this research approach could produce on a limited scale before applying it on a larger scale.
In the world of credit unions, there are over 200,000 staff members. Each one of these credit union employees serves a functional purpose: Debbie is a lending officer, Kathi is a teller, Bob is a marketing manger and Lois is a chief executive officer. Beyond these functional roles, your employees also represent the credit union to the membership and general public. When a member walks into a credit union to close a loan, deposit a check or withdraw funds a credit union employee is usually involved in the process. With the advent of remote technologies, the human factor of member-to-employee contact is still present, since the design of technology solutions is facilitated by credit union staff. One could make a strong case that credit unions should market the credit union to the staff before marketing it to members, because the most powerful impression that members and potential members hold of the credit union comes from interaction with the staff.
A key research question is “How do we effectively evaluate credit union employees’ attitudes about credit unions?” The answer came from an unlikely place. Increasingly, researchers in organizational behavior have studied organizational cultures using techniques borrowed from anthropologists, who study not only familiar but also alien cultures, and have developed strong techniques for assessing these cultures. In recent years, anthropologists have begun to bring these skills to the study of business cultures. The Filene Research Institute, therefore, thought it was time to test these methodologies to the world of credit unions. The purpose of this pilot study, then, was to see first-hand what this research approach could produce on a limited scale before applying it on a larger scale.
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