Business Reorganisation and Regional Development: The Case of the British Building Societies Movement

In this paper the impact of corporate restructuring in the British building societies movement is examined as an example of the changing organisation of the financial services industry, a significant component of the service sector. It is argued that regulatory changes, which have broken down the segmented and compartmentalised nature of the financial sector, have provided the opportunity for large building societies to diversify into new markets, and this in turn has encouraged a round of innovation in the financial services industry. It is also suggested that as the building society movement has become more deeply integrated into the financial sector as a whole, this has promoted a drift in employment towards the south and east of the country and a shift back to larger urban areas in the provinces.