‘National culture’ as an integrating agent in the post-acquisition organisation

Abstract

This paper, drawing on literature in anthropology and positive organisational scholarship (POS), and using a case study of the acquisition of a British car company by a German multinational corporation, proposes that national culture, in contrast to its treatment as a source of ‘distance’ or ‘friction’ can also operate as an integrating agent, whereby participants shape the new reality of the merged organisation through discourse and narrative, creating a collectively agreed new culture while also allowing particular groups to retain a distinctive identity within it. The paper concludes by suggesting theoretical and epistemological ways forward which focus on integrating HR managers’, as well as researchers’, perspectives on mergers and acquisitions, and which move away from binary models of analysis which judge mergers and acquisitions in abstract terms of ‘success’ versus ‘failure’. This allows researchers instead to focus on how ‘success’ is defined by the participants in the merger, and considers mergers and acquisitions as dynamic, multifaceted processes which incorporate different forms of success and failure within themselves.

Keywords:

• Mergers and acquisitions
• qualitative research methods
• MNCs
• culture
• identity
• Europe
• UK
• Germany
• integration
• narrative methods

Acknowledgements

As well as thanking BMW UK for their participation in this study, I would like to acknowledge the assistance of Ling Eleanor Zhang, Pervez Ghauri, and Christoph Dörrenbacher for reading and commenting on earlier versions of the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Nuffield Foundation (grant number SGS/00847/G) and by BMW UK Ltd.