The culture of the branch team and its impact on service delivery and corporate identity

The behaviour and attitudes of staff are a key input to a service organization’s identity. However, the quality and effectiveness of service delivery personnel in the retail banking sector varies significantly from branch to branch. The norms, values and behaviour that make up the corporate culture of the service team may explain the differences. Examines the nature of the relationship between corporate culture and service delivery, based on a programme of empirical research undertaken with 268 staff in 48 branches of a major UK bank. Finds that distinct subcultures exist within the branches, although no direct relationship was found between a branch’s culture and its service delivery performance. With regard to managing a bank’s corporate identity, these findings suggest that the design and control of the corporate behaviour component is possibly far more difficult and complex than is the management of the visual identity component.