Cultural Differences And Communication Issues In International Mergers And Acquisitions The Benq Debacle

Seminar paper from the year 2014 in the subject Communications - Intercultural Communication, grade: 1,0, Warsaw School of Economics, course: Global Management Practice, language: English, abstract: The number of global corporations has grown in the last few decades. The advent of technology and fliberalization of political and regulatory barriers enables companies to operate their business internationally. There are less moving barriers between different countries, more common worldwide laws, less barriers in monetary transaction and fewer geographic distances. However, very often companies fail in acquisition, foreign direct investments and cross-border partnerships because their global strategies are not proper enough, or the execution is more complex as expected. This paper deals with BenQ`s failure of acquiring of Siemens mobile devices. During the acquisition, parties face different challenges like market, technology and how to allocate budget, but in this case the biggest challenge was cultural interchange. This report analyzes cultural differences of both countries in which these companies are located based on Hofstede`s cultural dimensions. This particular acquisition is an appropriate example of why some intercultural mergers don’t work because of big differences in national, organizational and professional culture.

This book focuses on the dialectics between spatio-organisational gaps and local contexts that characterise cross-border investments. "Interspatial" investments – be it mergers & acquisitions (M&A) or greenfield investments – are usually characterised by what is referred to as "otherness", i.e. organisational and cultural distances of the firms involved in relation to their regional contexts. At the same time, economic, political and socio-cultural linkages are decisive for attracting cross-border investments to regions and for providing firms with conditions supportive of their market success. As a consequence of being locked into complex structures of proximities, cross-border investments are situated in contested terrain. This terrain triggers learning processes in both regional actors and investors, which can result in the convergence of mindsets and organisational issues. This book is unique in that it combines interspace (defined as the distance between the new owner and the cross-border venture), place (the target region), interpretation (perception and understanding of the investment by the actors involved) and context (institutions, actor networks and interaction), thus offering better understanding of recent processes of globalisation. Crossing disciplinary boundaries by integrating economic geography and management studies, the volume adopts an innovative and spatially informed perspective on foreign direct investments (FDI). This perspective will be of great value to scholars, students and practitioners. The volume is inventive in its approach in that it offers fresh readings from interdisciplinary theoretical approaches and combines these with valuable empirical insights from developed as well as Emerging Economies.

This book focuses on the cultural challenges often faced by international managers and global business operations. In the last few decades, the world has witnessed unprecedented economic turmoil, volatility, and uncertainty which has altered the political dynamics and sociocultural landscape around the globe and directly or indirectly affected international business activities. Further, new markets have opened up in every corner of the world. Brazil, Russia, India, and China, collectively known as BRIC, are strong emerging economic powers similar to the once captivated ‘Asian Tigers’ such as Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan which rose decades ago. The emergence of these markets has heightened both the opportunities and challenges for national and international businesses. Multinational firms are gradually expanding in the emerging markets and are expected to become giants in the foreseeable future. As they expand, they also need to assume increasing social responsibilities in a global context, and it is important that the ways business is conducted are developed accordingly. As such, understanding the practices, challenges, and strategies that companies have developed is critical to global firm’s success. Against this background, the book highlights the importance of understanding cultural elements when managing multicultural human behaviors in the workplace. Based on conceptual and empirical work, it pushes the frontiers of knowledge of this emerging field in international business setup and management, and explores how globalization is changing the way in which multinational firms formulate their business strategies. “The editors of this text bring a wealth of expertise in this area, as is evidenced by their choice of topics, and the strength of the experts they have invited to contribute to the book. The combined chapters provide both strategic guidance as well as a focus on operational concerns that may arise in international business including expatriation and human resource mobility. The authors not only correctly identify the oncoming challenges, but also present evidence regarding the likely solutions such as culture and innovation and global change management. Overall, this book will be a tremendous resource for scholars in the international business field, but I believe the audience will be much wider. The international team of editors and authors bring a wide range of perspective as well as real-world contextual knowledge that will be useful for scholars and practitioners who seek to leverage culture and human capital to advance international business and drive the global economy. I applaud the editors for their vision and leadership in guiding us through one of the most challenging contemporary research areas and through one of the most pressing challenges of our day.” -Dr. Richard L. Griffith, Executive Director, Institute for Cross Cultural Management, Florida Institute of Technology, Melbourne, FL, USA

Volume 37 of Advances in Librarianship presents detailed examples of local and regional mergers and other alliances, the methods used to ensure effective and successful collaborations, and descriptions of the factors which contributed to less successful efforts at consolidation. This volume is a companion to Volume 36 which provided a broader view

Originally presented as: Thesis (D.Phil.)--University of Giessen, 2009.

A compilation of checklists and ideas for coping with cultural differences in both business and social communication.