Experience of Canadian and Chinese acquisitions in Kazakhstan

Abstract

Our intention is to explore and describe the nature and the role of social integration mechanisms that moderate relationships between cultural distance and social integration. We followed one company, currently named KazOil, over 10 years and during two consecutive acquisitions by very different MNCs (Hurricane and CNPC) from two different national cultures (Canada and China, respectively). We found differences in the levels of post-acquisition social integration of the two acquisitions. Surprisingly, a more culturally distant MNC from a national culture perspective was more successful in achieving post-acquisition social integration than a culturally close one. We ascribe this to the fact that although both acquirers made extensive use of both formal and informal social integration mechanisms, they favored different types. We also specify other contextual variables which may explain the above findings.

Keywords:

• Canada
• China
• consecutive acquisition
• Kazakhstan
• social integration

Notes

1. The name of the company is disguised.

2. Cultural categorization studies have been largely criticized for being simplistic, methodologically limited, and Western-oriented (e.g. D'Iribarne 1996–1997; McSweeney 2002; Brock 2005). However, some cultural dimensions, e.g. developed by Hofstede (1980) proved to be useful since they are easy to communicate, they show validity, ‘they are at the right level between generality and detail; they establish a link among individual, organizational and societal phenomena’ (Aycan 2005, p. 1085). In the absence of a better, proven theory, the scholars continue to use these dimensions to compare cultures which remain the most complete comparative empirical research (Gomez-Mejia and Palich 1997).

3. The Sino-Kazak oil pipeline from Atyrau, a city on the coast of the Caspian Sea in Kazakhstan, to Dushanzi, Xinjiang, China, covers a distance of 3000 km with an oil transfusion capacity of 20 million tons yearly.