Cultivating an agile culture within financial institutions: narrative inquiry of leadership strategies and technological enablers

Matthew Kirchharr

doi:10.17918/00011380

The financial services industry continues to experience disruption from technological change, evolving consumer expectations, and competition from fintech firms, creating pressure for traditional banks and credit unions to become more adaptive, collaborative, and responsive. Although Agile frameworks are widely used to improve delivery, less is known about how leaders and practitioners in regulated financial institutions experience the development and sustainment of agile culture over time. The purpose of this qualitative narrative inquiry was to explore how agile practitioners and leaders in large U.S. financial institutions (greater than $50 billion in total assets) described their lived experiences of enabling and sustaining an agile culture and mindset, with attention to leadership strategies, organizational conditions, and the use of tools, data, and automation in decision-making. Guided by a constructivist and interpretivist orientation, this study used semi-structured interviews with six agile practitioners and leaders from large U.S. financial institutions. Participant accounts were organized temporally across pre-adoption conditions, implementation and cultural development, and present reflections on sustainment. Data analysis included first-cycle descriptive and in vivo coding, followed by second-cycle pattern and structural coding to identify participant narratives, cross-case themes, and results aligned to the research questions. Findings showed that agile adoption often emerged in response to organizational friction, slow delivery, market pressure, and the need for greater transparency. Leadership was central to whether agile practices became a meaningful cultural shift or remained a surface-level procedural change. Participants described psychological safety, collaboration, empowerment, and clear decision-making as necessary conditions for agile culture. Delivery practices and frameworks provided structure, but their value depended on leadership behavior and organizational trust. Governance, risk, and compliance were experienced as both necessary safeguards and potential constraints. Tools, dashboards, data, automation, and artificial intelligence supported agility when used to improve visibility, learning, planning, and decision-making but became counterproductive when used for surveillance, control, or superficial reporting. The study concludes that sustainable agile culture in financial institutions is not created by frameworks or technology alone. Instead, agility develops through the interaction of leadership, culture, governance, delivery practices, and responsible technology use. The findings offer guidance for financial institutions seeking to strengthen adaptive capacity while operating within regulated environments.

Cultivating an agile culture within financial institutions: narrative inquiry of leadership strategies and technological enablers

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Cultivating an agile culture within financial institutions: narrative inquiry of leadership strategies and technological enablers

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