Thesis (MTech(Business Administration)--Cape Technikon, Cape Town, 2001 / During the last decade, commercial banking competition has intensified for a variety of reasons. With shareholders requirements to satisfY and, at the same time to provide ''value for money" to i!s clients, banks restructured themselves to serve niche market segments, increase critical mass by growing volume business or a combination of both. With the change in political dispensation, the urgency for banks to evolve intensified for the following prime reasons: I. The increased number offoreign banks ~ntering the South African market and cherry-picking the commercial banks' best clients and employees. This was facilitated by the foreign banks low cost of entry and low overhead cost structure coupled with cheaper availability of offshore funding for South African businesses. 2. Increased emigration rates reducin6 the availability ofskilled and trained bank employees. 3. The stagnation ofthe economic emironment resulting in low organic growth of the business client base from the traditional white o\\ned segment. 4. The largely neglected black business segment which became politically. if not economically. attractive to the local banks. Against this background. commercial ban:,s strategies changed involving restructuring the internal organisation to refocus the banking industr.. efforts in achieving its profit objectives. satisfYing and keeping its clients and attracting new clients. primarily, from the local competitor banks.

The purposes of this study were to ascertain the status of managerial decentralization in several types of Nigerian banks, to identify the training needs for managerial decentralization, and finally to develop a model for managerial decentralization for the banks studied if the findings warranted it. The study utilized the "Multiple Case Studies Approach" and four banks were studied. Included in the group of banks was one of the three largest banks in the country, one commercial bank with the full allowable foreign participation, one government owned bank, and one other indigenously owned bank. There were ten manager interviewees at each of the four banks. An interview guide was designed and used to seek information pertaining to six major research questions.