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Merging without alienating: interventions promoting cross-cultural organizational integration and their limitations

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Abstract

Foreign direct investment, particularly cross-border mergers and acquisitions can spawn a range of individual-level outcomes from cross-cultural adjustment and synergistic learning, on the positive side, to work alienation, on the negative. Unsuccessful navigation of these individual-level outcomes leads to failed integration that can seriously affect the realization of desired organizational outcomes such as successful technology transfer, knowledge-sharing, and the general realization of global growth. By means of an iterative between-methods triangulation, the study surfaces cross-cultural work alienation as a phenomenon that can limit the overall success of such ventures, and identifies interventions that help to promote successful post-merger integration.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Kanzaki Specialty Papers for their support for this research, especially in terms of ongoing access to the Massachusetts site for the principal researcher for 5 years. Thanks also go to Abhijit Sanyal, who helped in the initial quantitative analysis, Julie Bae for research assistance, Harry Lane for encouraging us to submit to JIBS, and the thoughtful guidance of our editor Charles Galunic and two anonymous reviewers.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. San José State University, San Jose, USA

    Mary Yoko Brannen

  2. INSEAD, Fontainebleau, France

    Mary Yoko Brannen

  3. Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, USA

    Mark F Peterson

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  1. Mary Yoko Brannen
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  2. Mark F Peterson
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Correspondence to Mary Yoko Brannen.

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Accepted by Charles Galunic, Departmental Editor, 25 March 2008. This paper has been with the authors for three revisions.

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Brannen, M., Peterson, M. Merging without alienating: interventions promoting cross-cultural organizational integration and their limitations. J Int Bus Stud 40, 468–489 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1057/jibs.2008.80

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