Between Positioning and Delivery: How Institutional Distance Shapes Art Advisory in Private Banking

Abstract

This thesis examines how institutional distance shapes the design and positioning of art advisory services in private banking. While institutional theory has focused predominantly on market entry and governance, limited attention has been paid to how institutional forces shape services post-entry, particularly those dependent on local cultural assumptions. Adopting a qualitative single-case design with embedded units, the study investigates UBS, J.P. Morgan, and Julius Baer across London, Zurich, and Singapore. Data consists of 31 public documents and three expert engagements (one in-depth spoken interview and two structured written protocols from senior practitioners), analysed using the Gioia methodology. The findings yield five aggregate dimensions, revealing that the cultural-cognitive pillar drives the most pronounced cross-hub variation. This manifests as a shift from investment framing in London to stewardship in Zurich and generational identity in Singapore. These forces operate through both deliberate adaptation and unreflective reproduction, qualifying the conventional view of cultural-cognitive influence as purely unreflective. Furthermore, a distinct positioning-delivery gap emerges: banks position themselves as architects of local art markets, while their operational engagement is closer to ecosystem amplification, a tension particularly visible in Singapore. Ultimately, this study extends institutional theory from market entry to post-entry service design. It refines Scott's three pillars as an interconnected, dynamic system and advances the decoupling literature by conceptualising cross-border service positioning within culturally embedded sectors.