Following the financial crisis and a series of mis-selling and 'rigging' scandals in the financial services, organisational culture, and particularly the risk culture of organisations, has come to be regarded as a key issue for both financial firms and their regulators This paper considers the extent to which regulatory published notices, 'Final Notices' (FNs), relating to breaches of the regulatory Handbook, are able to provide lessons, or pointers, in the development of 'appropriate' cultures. By undertaking a qualitative content analysis of all the FNs in 2012, we examine the extent to which FNs draw attention to issues of culture, and to the regulator's analysis of the drivers of culture published as part of its treating customers fairly (TCF) initiative. The analysis finds that, although not easy to extract, there are important learning points in FNs relating to organisational culture, and in particular to the factors driving behaviours and outcomes that are signs of poor culture. This paper suggests that, whilst it may not be for a regulator to dictate firms' culture, it could do much more to make use of the content of FNs as a learning tool for firms; particularly in the context of its cultural framework for TCF. This would support the 'outcomes-based' approach being espoused by the UK's regulators.Keywords: risk culture; Final Notice; treating customers fairly; content analysis; Financial Conduct Authority The crisis exposed significant shortcomings in the governance and risk management of firms and the culture and ethics which underpin them. (Sants 2012a) Introduction Organisational culture in financial services firms has become an important issue for the UK's regulator (Sants 2010a;2010b, Wheatley 2012a as well as the firms themselves (Salz 2013). In the wake of the financial crisis, significant academic attention has also been paid to risk culture within financial organisations (Ashby, Palermo, and Power 2012; FSA 2012a;McConnell 2014). Given the behaviour of 'rogue' individuals, the inadequacies of large organisations such as RBS and HSBC, and the failings of an industry as a whole as evidenced by scandals such as PPI and LIBOR (Bryce, Cheevers, and Webb 2013), it is increasingly argued that, for financial firms, Journal of Risk Research, 2016 Vol. 19, No. 3, 364-387, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13669877.2014 an appropriate risk culture is a key element of an appropriate firm culture; that is, the acceptability of '"doing what we do" in the ordinary course of business' (IIF 2009, AIII2).Ashby , Palermo, and Power draw attention to an increasing expansion, since the financial crisis, in the use of the term 'risk culture' in the news, and by professional bodies and consultancy firms (2012, 19). For example, in KPMG's 2008 global survey on risk management in banks, which covered over 400 professionals involved in risk management in 79 countries, it was found that 77% of participants were dedicated to establishing a more effective risk culture, with 48% citing risk culture as the element of risk manageme...

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We assess the presence of herding by considering the lead-lag relationship of sovereign ratings assigned by the three main rating agencies at the individual country level. Given that different rating agencies may have different levels of expertise (reputation) for different countries it is not obvious that such homogeneity holds. We therefore conduct poolability tests within this context to assess this assumption and find evidence of heterogeneity. This leads us to conduct country-by-country time-series tests to assess the lead-lag relationship among agencies. To our knowledge we are the first to do this and thereby extend the literature on herding among rating agencies' sovereign assignments. We also consider changes in the lead-lag relationship through time by splitting the sample into pre-crisis and crisis periods to assess the extent to which any herding is intentional and our results indicate some degree of heterogeneity through time. To the extent that there is herding we find that it is generally towards Standard and Poor's ratings confirming our expectations given that this agency is regarded as possessing the greatest reputational capital. However, our results do not support the expectation that Fitch is a follower for more (a leader for less) countries than Moody's.

Mass expansion of the UK Higher Education (HE) sector is eroding its well documented benefits -leading many to question whether HE remains worthwhile. Avoiding the traditional approach of estimating the returns to HE, we investigate why many now feel that attending university will not yield any financial benefits. Using BSA data from 2010 we find that this negativity is being driven by perceived lack of graduate job prospects, the rise in tuition fees and wage underpayment. We conclude that this may well fuel uncertainty and reduce demand for HE from lower socio-economic groups while increasing intra class conflict in higher socio-economic groups.

Using as a starting point the recent work of Mountford-Zimdars, Jones, Sullivan and Heath (2013), we analyse attitudes towards expanding HE opportunities in the UK. We propose that the approach of Mountford-Zimdars et al. is flawed not only in its adoption of a multivariate logistic regression but in its interpretation of results. We make a number of adaptations, chief among them the use of an ordered probit approach and the addition of a time dimension to test for changes in attitudes between 2000 and 2010. We find attitudes towards HE expansion have intensified during the decade 2000-2010, but we uncover no evidence that this is due to graduates wanting to 'pull up the ladder', as suggested by Mountford-Zimdars et al. We argue that evidence of a widespread desire to reduce access to HE can most likely be explained by social congestion theory, internal institutional disaffection and rising tuition fees.