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Proximity of Language and Confidence: A Winning Financial Model? ×
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EPISTÉMÈ Vol.14 pp.75-98
Proximity of Language and Confidence: A Winning Financial Model?
Key Words : bank,communication,trust,language,microfinance,speech,proximity
Abstract
Subsequent to the deregulation of the markets in the 1990s, a bigger diversity of clients (Sheth & Shainesh, 2005), and a significant change in consumer behavior, the situation for numerous sectors, such as the bank sector, drastically changed and led to a crisis of confidence. To find a way out of this situation, certain financial organizations looked to improve their image by reinforcing customer-employee interaction and intensifying interpersonal relations (Berry, 1993). In this respect, the experience of the Austrian cooperative bank Raiffeisenlandesbank (RLB NÖ-Wien) could inspire microfinance. The bank provided specific linguistic and intercultural training for its staff working with a multi-ethnic population, and has bank branches with multi-language speaking employees in high immigration density districts. This managerial model could be of particular interest in the Ivory Coast given that the linguistic communication model upon which microfinance is based in the Ivory Coast has shown its limits with regard to an illiterate clientele or one with a poor level of French.