A Notsie narrative perspective on turnover in the UK financial services industry

David Sarpong, Mairi Maclean, Wuraola Hassan

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Drawing on a cultural perspective from the Global South, Notsie narrative, a West African literary folklore, we explore the high churn rate in the UK financial services industry. Viewing the storied accounts of former financial complaint handlers through a Notsie narrative lens, we examine why they frequently quit their well-paid jobs. Our study elucidates how the relentless pursuit of efficiency culminates in managerial tyranny–a set of impulsive and oppressive organizing practices that combine to precipitate high turnover. The wisdom of our Notsie narrative perspective centres on the importance of relationality–the skilled ways of interrelating that create connections between people, and what it means for the Notsie kingdom being doomed to collapse without its people; a wisdom seemingly overlooked and undervalued in western ways of knowing, located in individualism, rationality, and instrumentalism.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)425-452
JournalAfrica Journal of Management
Volume8
Issue number4
Early online date30 Aug 2022
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2 Oct 2022

Bibliographical note

Copyright © 2022, The Author(s). Co-published by NISC Pty (Ltd) and Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.

Keywords

  • Notsie narrative
  • West African literary folklore
  • financial complaint handlers
  • managerial tyranny
  • turnover

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