Cultural conditions of successful merger on consumer finance market

Tomasz Piwowarski

Abstract

The main goal of dissertation was researching of those critical factors which have the most stronger impact for successful merger, especially from cultural perspective. This objective leads to the following research problems: 1) research of culture differences a. What did the culture differences exist before the merger? b. Which former culture differences caused the biggest barriers during integration process? 2) research of culture change a. Has there been a cultural change after merger? If so, in which direction? b. What was the role of the management in cultural integration? 3) research of merger success a. Did the merger finish successfully in financial perspective? b. Did the merger finish successfully from the non-financial point of view? As an area of research author chose a financial service sector. Especially he focused on merged banks and merged financial intermediaries, which carries on their activity on consumer finance market. They had specific merger motives and they also had specific for this sector dilemma - what is the more important: safety of operations or maximizing of sales. Contradiction between this two important issues and different ways of resolving this problem can create original strategies and as a consequence can create unique organizational culture. As a result of researches author formulated a model of cultural integration.