Organizational Culture and Services Management in Canada, Mexico and the United States: An Empirical Study of Commercial Banking

Abstract

The service management perspective as described by Gummesson (1994) and Gronroos (1992) is based on the concepts of relationship marketing and service quality. This perspective is a client-centred approach dependent on managerial processes and a service culture which foster the development and maintenance of the firm-client relationship. Commercial banking is a professional services business characterized by the relationship between the account manager and the business client Although North American commercial banks seek long-term relationships with their business clients, these same clients gave bureaucratic inflexibility (Canada) and poor service (Mexico) as the principal reasons for terminating the relationships with their banks (Paulin et al. 1998). The purposes of the present research were to determine the type of organizational culture present in North American commercial banks and to relate these findings to a services management perspective.