This article examines the bank organizational structures in Norway and the UK. We find evidence to support the hypothesis that Norwegian banks are based on a modified relationship bank model. Furthermore, we test whether there is a difference in loan loss ratio and loan recovery ratio between the relationship banks found in Norway and the transactional banks found in the UK. The results support the idea that relationship banks are more effective screeners and monitorers than transactional banks. However, UK banks report consistently higher returns on equity suggesting that this result might come at a too high cost. The work is carried out with a mixture of literature studies, interviews with senior bank officers and comparative data analysis.

This paper explores how the context of competencies affects the way we see and value competence and how it thereby forms communication and strategies of action. The paper puts forward the view that the context of competence is often spoken of in incomprehensible terms and generally taken for granted and unproblematic, although it is agreed to be of great importance. By crystallising three different modes of contextualised competence thinking (prescriptive, descriptive and analytical) the paper shows that the underlying assumptions about context – the interaction between the individual and the social – has major consequences for the specific enactment of competence. The paper argues in favour of a second order observation strategy for the context of competence. But in doing so it also shows that prevailing second-order competence theories so far, in criticising (counter) positions (and their lack of including the context) have also failed to make their notion of context explicit and thus assume that the context is a clear and self-explanatory concept no matter the starting point.

The impact of technology on business firms’ competitive advantage has emerged as an important topic in writings on strategic management. Much of the relevant technological developments are generated outside the boundaries of the firm. Firms will not assimilate technological change, nor will it influence the firms’ deliberate strategy unless management notices it. Technological change, however, must compete with a large array of strategic issues for management attention. In this article we develop and test a model specifying individual and contextual factors that contribute to variation in managers’ focus on technological issues. Specifically, we investigate the relationships between formal education, departmental affiliation, prior experience of environmental shocks, firm competitive strategy and technological uncertainty on managers’ technology orientation. Results show that managers’ technology orientation is influenced by their personal backgrounds as well as by their firms’ strategies and technological uncertainty in their present external environments.