Cultural Dimensions

TIME WARNER

-Cultural Difference should have warned in time

“I Remember saying at a vital board meeting where we approved this, that life was going to be different going forward because they’re very different cultures, but I have to tell you, I underestimated how different…It was beyond certainly my abilities to figure out how to blend the old media and the new media culture” said Richard parsons, President of Time Warner to The New York Times interview. (Arango, 2010)

            Time Warner once the giant as Internet service and cable provider has gone downhill due and got acquired by the AT&T, the reason for this is its merger with the AOL. Time Warner merging with AOL failed due to its cultural differences at work.

            When Time Warner acquired, AOL the dot come bubble burst leading the company’s billions of money to drain. From the beginning point of this deal, it was very difficult for the mergers and the company’s lawyers and professionals tried very hard to combine the cultures of the two organizations. At this point of time, the stockholders and executives of the AOL were not adaptable to the new change which was going to change the phase of the internet broadband spectrum. (McGrath, 2015)

            The stockholders of AOL has felt very hard to adopt the new changes which were suggested by the business experts and Time Warner’s executives, which eventually led to the fall of Time Warner’s stocks and it also affected the business of the Time Warner cable too. This led to the downfall of the Time Warner after which it got acquired by the AT&T later on.

My Recommendation:

         As per Hofstede’s cultural dimensions, the AOL stockholders are very short term oriented. In this case, my recommendation shall go with the Time Warner taking a lead and doing an adoptable POC (Proof of Concept) with the broadband spectrum online advertising. And display it to the Stockholders and explain the concept of how it changes the phase of online advertisements and e-commerce too. With their approval implement, it step by step and show the profits to stockholders.