From box-tickers to frame-makers

Description

How do experts increase their influence in organizations? We examine the organizational transformation of risk experts in two large UK banks, where we study the dynamics of the risk management function over a period of five years. Our findings indicate that the rising influence of a staff function on strategic decision-making combines two interdependent initiatives. First, influential staff functions transform personally communicable, tacit expert knowledge to tool-generated, highly communicable knowledge. Second, the experts avoid detaching themselves completely from the resulting knowledge, and maintain a high degree of personal involvement in producing analysis and interpretation, while operating in key decision-making fora. In the first bank ("Saxon Bank"), the risk function was successful in achieving such influence. The risk experts established a tight collaboration with top management, which they employed as a platform for incorporating their qualitative and quantitative measures in central organizational planning, decision making and accountability mechanisms. We call the experts that achieve such positions of influence 'frame-makers'. In the second bank ("Anglo Bank"), the parallel existence of two groups of risk experts left a divided risk function incapable of promoting risk mangers towards the position of frame-makers. Instead, we found these two groups of risk experts in less influential roles: one in the role of a "box ticking" function, the other playing a role we call the "ad hoc advisor." Using the two cases we develop a conceptual framework that generalizes the different routes that experts follow in their diverse attempts to gain influence in organizations.

Subjects

Series Statement

• Working paper / Harvard Business School -- 11-068