No description available.

This thesis explores the apparent paradox of mutuality in Britain at the turn of the millennium. It contrasts the relative decline of building societies via demutualisation, against the continual governmental support for and growth of credit unions. It begins by constructing a cultural conceptualisation of mutuality, which comprises of four interrelated elements: trust, reciprocity/habit, longevity, and caution. These are formalised in an organisational model of cooperation, which seeks to explain how mutuals function in reality. Both these models are employed to assess the validity of competing explanations of contemporary mutuality. First, a functionalist interpretation, which assumes that demutualisation is an inevitable result of growth, is examined. Second, a neo-Marxist analysis, which believes resource appropriation by building society management, was the motivation for change. However, neither theory was substantiated by the evidence because they could not fully explain why demutualisation did not occur earlier or why new mutuals, namely credit unions, were being established. Consequently a third interpretation synthesising the Neo-Marxist thesis with a cultural post-modern glocal turn was developed. Accordingly, demutualisation occurred because building societies became disembedded from society. First, the culmination of paternalism produced a transformation in the trust relationship between members and management. Second, in the political and economic spheres, Thatcherism and globalisation marginalised any alternative perspectives to the neo-liberal narrative, through the commodification of the personal; discrediting and abasement of the mutual; and the imposition of a crypto-Utopian discourse. Alongside this assault on mutuality a counter-culture of opposition to globalisation, glocalism, created spaces for new mutuals, such as credit unions. Many of these entities deliberately prioritised social over economic objectives and based their attachment on a small locality. By examining mutuals holistically it is hoped that this thesis contributes to a sociological understanding of how cooperative organisations are affected by the state and hypercapitalism.

No description available.

No description available.

The combined environmental effects of technological change, increasing competition, new legislation and increasingly demanding consumers have created pressure within the financial services industry for change. One outcome has been a proliferation of new products in the marketplace. This research explores new product development within one subset of this industry -- building societies. By combining the new product development, service marketing and financial services literature, a foundation has been developed for an empirical study into the development practices and the characteristics of successful and unsuccessful new products. The determinants of success and failure for new product development have been examined utilizing a comparative methodology, and subsequently a discriminant model has been developed that successfully classifies successful and unsuccessful new products. By determining how new products are actually developed, the findings support previous claims that intangibility, inseparability, heterogeneity and perishability do have an effect on the development process. Further, the level of sophistication of the development activities is lower than in previously reported research. Notable variations from the development process for tangible new products are the inclusion of system design, system testing and personnel training stages. The majority of societies have been found to lack strategic integration of the development process, to apply different measures of success and to prefer qualitative market research techniques over quantitative approaches. As well, considerable variation exists in the organizational approaches used to manage the process, although organizational related variables were found to have a strong impact upon the predictability of a successful outcome for a new product.

The aim of this thesis is to analyse selected amendments of The Building Savings Act No. 96/1993 of the Legal Code. It concerns the amendments that affected the system of building savings in a fundamental way, resp. they have been able to affect it. In its 8 chapters, the thesis deals with the original legislation on building savings, its place within the context of the Czech legal system, basic terminology of building savings and the contentious questions that arise from them. They are put in the context of both the historical and the current legislations, including not only re-codification of the Civil Law but also so called The Mortgage Directive 2014/17/EU. To illustrate this, it is used also selected court rulings concerning building savings, charts and tables. The whole issue is assessed from the qualitative point of view - while taking into account a 2012 amendment that has not been implemented. With the view of the lack of the specialist literature, it is used mainly texts of the related acts and casual reports as well as the wealth of experience I have gained during my many years at work. The result of this thesis is a summary of the key amendments of the building savings legislation in the Czech Republic and incorporation of building savings into the legal and economic contexts. I allowed...

The combined environmental effects of technological change, increasing competition, new legislation and increasingly demanding consumers have created pressure within the financial services industry for change. One outcome has been a proliferation of new products in the marketplace. This research explores new product development within one subset of this industry -- building societies. By combining the new product development, service marketing and financial services literature, a foundation has been developed for an empirical study into the development practices and the characteristics of successful and unsuccessful new products. The determinants of success and failure for new product development have been examined utilizing a comparative methodology, and subsequently a discriminant model has been developed that successfully classifies successful and unsuccessful new products. By determining how new products are actually developed, the findings support previous claims that intangibility, inseparability, heterogeneity and perishability do have an effect on the development process. Further, the level of sophistication of the development activities is lower than in previously reported research. Notable variations from the development process for tangible new products are the inclusion of system design, system testing and personnel training stages. The majority of societies have been found to lack strategic integration of the development process, to apply different measures of success and to prefer qualitative market research techniques over quantitative approaches. As well, considerable variation exists in the organizational approaches used to manage the process, although organizational related variables were found to have a strong impact upon the predictability of a successful outcome for a new product.

The aim of the thesis, whose title is "Analysis of selected building societies and their products and terms of building savings loan", is to enable the general public in particular (clients or potential clients) to obtain comprehensive information about building savings, its functioning and important features, and subsequently to gain knowledge of products offered by the selected building societies operating on the Czech market. Special attention of the application part of the thesis is paid to the conditions fulfilling of which is demanded by the building companies before a loan agreement is signed. Thus the text of the thesis should give its readers knowledge of which obligations the particular building companies demand to be fulfilled before signing a loan agreement, and how these conditions differ in various building companies.