FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENTS IN THE BANKING INDUSTRY CULTURAL BARRIERS. CASE STUDY OF POLAND

Cultural barriers for the international expansion of banks are described in the literature relatively rarely. The exceptions are studies on Islamic banking. This aim of the article is to present the banking sector in the Polish cultural environment context. The thesis says that the development of banking is strongly conditioned by cultural aspects, due to the nature of the perception of this kind of economic activity by the society, and historical conditions. The topic is even more underlined when it is confronted with the processes of globalization. The second thesis is : Poor knowledge and the problems of adjusting to the Polish cultural conditions for international investors can be a major barrier to the development of a bank in Poland, especially within strong ethnocentric tendencies, characteristic of many representatives of foreign capital. The level of ethnocentrism in banks - financial TNCs daughters in Poland is very high, and adaptability to local conditions vary, as it can be observed in comparisons of the financial results achieved by particular banks. The verification of author's thesis is based on the method of individual focus interviews (with bank managers - domestic and foreign) and statistical surveys.