ABSTRACT
The culture of finance is the stuff of books, plays and films, as in Belfort’s (2007) The Wolf of Wall Street and Lewis’s (2011) The Big Short. The concept is used to represent Wall Street and the City of London after deregulation and during the global financial crisis, wherein long-term relationships and trust in other market participants apparently gave way to uninhibited self-seeking behaviour. Luyendijk’s (2015) anthropological take on the City of London after the global financial crisis has reinforced perceptions of an industry out of control. Yet he does something different and important: while providing evidence of a pervasive culture of amorality in major financial institutions, he also indicates that these types of organisations seem to lack the appetite or the capacity to manage the behaviour of their employees.
