engleski

Managers as 'Cultural Drivers': Raiffeisen Bank in Croatia

Starting Beginning with specific definitions of entrepreneurship and culture, in this study we described in this study the economic conditions which that led to the establishment of the Raiffeisen Bank Austria in Zagreb and the content and structure of the culture encounters within it. This story suggests that, due to special conditions in Croatia in the 90-ties1990s, the transfer of the Western/ RBA culture was smooth, unconditional, and basically uni-directional. Looking at that process from the cultural point of view, the empirical evidence (provided by 15 in-depth interviews made with head-quarter’s' managers in Zagreb in 2005 and in 2006 supported the general thesis that RBA Zagreb, from the very beginning of its operation in Croatia, acted as “‘a non-socialist bank’, ” that is, as a genuine “Western” institution which wants to introduce some important innovations in local banking industry. The presented analysis indicates that different types of “new organizational values, ”, mostly subordinated to the strong imperatives of profit and bBank’s market share, and imposed by the leading bBank’s leading managers, played a significant role in RBA Zagreb’s success in the last fourteen years. Thisat can be seen on at least two levels of analysis: (a) on the level of particular individuals working in the bBank, and (b) on the organizational system level. Some structural variables determine the appearance and process of cultural encounters within the RBA Zagreb. They are takingtake place acrossin a lonarger time period (during from socialism to the present, nowadays), and – gradually, with no larger shocks (except perhaps for a portion art of the less educated or younger workforce). These cultural encounters presume the existence of educated “cultural agents” (top and middle managers) ; when there are no such actors the process of cultural change is slowed down and intermingled with “market identity” and “market capacity” problems. Our analysis shows that the overall “cultural scenery” is determined by the nature and structure of new economic opportunities, recognized by new foreign owners (RZB Vienna) in the Croatian market. Second, the main agents for adopting new market-oriented behaviour and by-market-driven -organizational culture within Croatian companies are mostly domestic top and middle managers. These “cultural brokers” (when looking aton their education and personal cultural capital) were already “created” in the socialist period ; they were ready for a new institutional framework and new owners. They invested in new business and cultural encounters the main “personal securities” they have: – the “embedded knowledge” about domestic market and social environments. Although the top -managers’ efforts in RBA Zagreb are largestrongly directed towards the integration of the whole company into the a larger corporate setting and corporate performance standards, they at the same time they want to maintainkeep the market flexibility of the whole bBank. New models of “management competences”, , new work attitudes expectedasked from employees, investments in personal training/capabilities, the increased importance of Hhuman Rresources Ddepartments, the gradual replacement of the “local workers’ mentality” with the one more “internationally oriented”— ; , all these elements of “intellectual and management technologies” serve as newly introduced “cultural drivers” for changing the to-work-oriented-attitudes and business behaviour of both the domestic managers and workforce. However, the “localization of new management technologies” is also important ; that is why some innovation ion local markets isare possible (i.e., the development of retail banking as a Croatian innovation in the RBI corporate system). At the endFinally, the fierce competition ion the local and international markets forces all actors to embrace/adopt new and broader notions of risks in their business and social environments.

Managers, culture, enterepreneurship, Raiffeisen bank, Croatia

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