Dr. Christiane Schnell
(Institute of Social Research at the Goethe-University Frankfurt/Main, Germany)

Do banks need bankers? On the interpretation of value creation within the German financial sector.

The German financial sector experienced fundamental changes during the last years, which were perpetuated by the outcomes of the financial crisis. At the same time the “banker” occupation lost in social reputation. This context builds the background for the reconstruction of ideas of value creation, which could be found within German banks. 
Predominant explanations of how profit is made by banks focus on financial engineering, lowering transaction costs and marketing. This might be a reason for a successively devaluation of the functional role of “the banker” within the banking institutions, which emerged even before the clash. I will argue in my presentation, that in the current situation, which is embossed by new difficulties and strong competition between banks, aspects of service and service quality cautiously find there way back into concepts of value creation. In how far banks recover the role of the banker again, will be discussed. 
The presentation results from a qualitative study on the German Financial sector, conducted from 2009 to 20011. About 50 interviews and long term observations build the empirical basis for the argumentation.  

Christiane Schnell received her doctor’s degree 2006 for a study on the regulation of cultural professions in Germany, at the Centre for Social Policy Research at the University of Bremen. After conducting a bigger research project on entrepreneurship at the Institute for Labour and Economy in Bremen she went 2009 as post-doc researcher to the Institute of Social Research in Frankfurt, to work on her current project on value creation and recognition in the financial sector. 
Christiane Schnell is board member of the Research Network Sociology of Professions at the European Sociological Association and speaker of the section Sociology of Professions within the German Sociological Association.