Abstract
This paper discusses the effect of firms' ethnological identities in financial service sector on customer acceptance, and how banks adapt to be competitive and relevant in local context environment. The authors focus on a market congruence typology of domestic and foreign banks that are on a scale of compliance with the institutional, political, and theological environment of Saudi Arabia, a country where Islamic Shari'ah laws are followed and adhered to in all aspects of life. Some banks are found to navigate with the minimally accepted ethnological market standards and norms that dominantly dictate in the local market context, while others follow those standards and norms strictly in the home business environment. The authors proposed a classification system for firms intersected by context enculturation conformance when entering a host market from cross culture perspectives. Performance data of the banks by their domestic and foreign affiliation was examined by a degree of their local context enculturation conformance, in this case, the Shari'ah compliance. The authors discussed the results by developing a cultural identity checklist of the actions, behavior, and content, direction, environment, and foundation (ABCDEF) to understand how a firm's cultural identity can be measured in marketing of offered financial services rather than solely rely on a self-announced ethnological compliance.