Organizational Culture in a Professional Business to Business Service Context: Implications for Business Performance and Long-Term Relationships in Mexican Commercial Banking

Paulin et al. (1998) previously reported that the higher Mexican business clients assessed the strength of the relationship with their banks (relational norms): the higher were their judgements of satisfaction and service quality, the more they were inclined to recommend the bank and the account manager to colleagues and, the less likely they were to switch banks. However, over 50 percent of the business clients of three commercial banks in Mexico City indicated that there was at least a 50–50 percent probability that they would change banks within the next year and that poor service was the principal reason given. Despite an expressed strategy to develop long-term relationships with business clients, commercial banks in Mexico and Canada (Paulin et al. 1997) do not have the most appropriate processes and organizational cultures for being client-oriented according to a service management perspective (Gummesson 1994; Gronroos 1992). However, this is only a one-sided view of this business-to-business relationship. Therefore, the purpose of this paper was to examine the possible link between the organizational cultures of the client companies and their assessments of the bank’s effectiveness and their likelihood of switching banks.