Diverging Paths to a Network World: Computerizing Spanish and British Savings Banks, 1960-1990

The development of shared data processing networks and their consequences for new retail banking services from the 1960s to the 1980s in both Spanish and British savings banks are the topic of this research. Each of the two competitive environments responded in its own way to the processes of technological and organizational change. As a result this paper observes cross-country variations in the presence of convergence and globalisation. This approach focus on the impact of computer communication networks as a result of corporate strategy in Spanish savings banks. But relevant aspects of computerization in Britain are considered to highlight the adaptative capacity of technology in different environments. Also this paper considers organizational forms with similar root in their corporate governance to enable a degree of homogeneity of the analysis of technological change.