Strategies for Cultural Integration Following Cross-Border Mergers and Acquisitions

Strategies for Cultural Integration Following

Cross-Border Mergers and Acquisitions

Section 1: Foundation of the Study

Business leaders often view cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&As) as a

means to expand in the global market and to continue market presence (Bauer, Hautz, &

Matzler, 2015). Cross-border M&As constitute 50% to 80% of all foreign direct

investment (FDI) flows taking place in the world (Sharma, 2016; United Nations

Conference on Trade and Development [UNCTAD], 2016). By cross-border M&As,

organizations can access new markets, diversify risks, gain technologies and resources,

and develop competitive advantages more efficiently than greenfield investments (Bauer

et al., 2015).

Cross-border M&As are not always successful. Jedin and Saad (2016) estimated

approximately 60% of all M&As conducted in the world fail due to unsuccessful efforts

to create expected values during the integration process. There are persistent challenges

relating to organizational and diverse national cultures influencing cross-border M&A

activities (Andriuskevicius & Ciegis, 2017; Caiazza & Volpe, 2015).

Cross-border M&As would be more auspicious if business leaders prioritized

cultural factors early in the integration process (Hirsch, 2015). By skillfully integrating

the acquired foreign workers to create a diverse workforce, business leaders may be able

to enhance intellectual capital, market shares, and competitive advantages for the newly

established organization (Dow, Cuypers, & Ertug, 2016). The ability to integrate a

culturally diverse workforce by recognizing the differences and taking them into account

in everyday decision-making to avoid cross-cultural clashes may be one of the most vital

skills that business leaders need to develop to grow organizations in the globally

competitive marketplace (Jemielniak, 2016).

Background of the Problem

Cross-border M&As are complex, and many information and communications

technology (ICT) companies are failing to achieve desired financial objectives or

synergies after completing the deals due to unsuccessful postacquisition integrations of

workers from different national cultures (Osarenkhoe & Hyder, 2015). For example,

leaders of the acquiring organizations tend to align workers by applying acquirer’s

national cultures and business practices to the acquired foreign workers of the target

firms, which often leads to the destruction of the target’s knowledge-based resources and

innovative capabilities by triggering employee turnover and disrupting organizational

routines (Zaks, 2016). Cross-border M&As constitute 50% to 80% of all FDI flows in the

world (Sharma, 2016; UNCTAD, 2016). According to UNCTAD (2016), the global FDI

flows recorded $1.746 trillion, of which cross-border M&As contributed $869 billion.

The global ICT companies spent roughly $50 billion on cross-border M&As in 2015

(UNCTAD, 2016), and 60% to 80% of the deals failed (Jedin & Saad, 2016; Zaks, 2016)

or 40% to 60% of acquirers ultimately divested their targets (Cui, Dong, Liu, & Wang,

2016; UNCTAD, 2016). Jedin and Saad (2016) noted that 50% to 70% of M&As failed to

create value for the acquiring firms’ shareholders. Many previous studies focused on the

challenges of how to achieve the cross-border acquisitions, but little research has been

done on how to retain acquired foreign targets and keep growing in the market.

Problem Statement

Some ICT companies fail in cross-border M&As after they complete the deals

(Bauer et al., 2015). ICT companies invest an average of 50 billion dollars on crossborder

acquisitions annually (UNCTAD, 2016), and 40% to 80% of the leaders of acquiring

organizations ultimately divest their acquired targets (Cui et al., 2016; Zaks, 2016). The

general business problem is the leaders of the acquiring organizations are unable to

project the impact of mixing different national cultures within the organizations on their

business performance. The specific business problem is some leaders of ICT companies

lack the strategies to integrate diverse workers following cross-border M&As using the

knowledge of different national cultures.

Purpose Statement

The purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to explore strategies the

leaders of ICT companies use to integrate diverse workers following cross-border M&As

using the knowledge of different national cultures. The targeted population comprised

leaders of ICT companies in relatively low context cultures in North America or Europe

that have acquired overseas counterparts in higher context cultures in Asia and kept

operating with those M&A targets as part of the mergers for more than 5 years. The

implications for positive social change include the potential to promote spillovers of

skills, productivities, and knowledge between the societies where acquirers and targets of

internationally merged firms belong (Liang, 2017), which may contribute to enhancing

both societies’ economy and quality of life. Improving individuals’ understanding of the

importance of acknowledging different national cultures may also be useful in mitigating

potential unemployment rates as a result of reduced withdrawal behaviors such as

absenteeism or resignations (Stoermer, Bader, & Froese, 2016).

Nature of the Study

There are three research methods: qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods

(Venkatesh, Brown, & Sullivan, 2016). I selected the qualitative method by which I

conducted multiple semistructured, in-depth interviews using open-ended questions. My

primary objective was to explore the strategies that leaders of internationally merged

organizations are practicing to handle potential cultural clashes in the workplace, which

employees with different national cultures may cause as a result of ineffective

integrations following cross-border M&As. Qualitative researchers use open-ended,

evolving, and nondirectional questions to seek, discover, and explore a process or to

describe experiences (Venkatesh et al., 2016).

Using the qualitative method, I aimed to understand the meanings that participants

ascribe to various phenomena because the qualitative method provides opportunities for

the researcher to establish trust with participants and gain access to meanings and indepth

understanding (see Saunders, Lewis, & Thornhill, 2015). Conversely, the quantitative

method is deductive, and the researcher collects numerical data using descriptive,

comparative, and specific questionnaires to test hypotheses (Saunders et al., 2015;

Venkatesh et al., 2016). Researchers choose to conduct mixed-methods research to

develop novel theoretical perspectives by combining the strengths of quantitative and

qualitative methods (Venkatesh et al., 2016). To examine the relationship between

cultural distance and success of cross-border M&A integration, I was not testing

hypotheses, which is part of a quantitative study or the quantitative aspect of a

mixedmethods study.

I considered four qualitative designs to study the challenges associated with

crosscultural M&As: (a) action research, (b) ethnography, (c) narrative inquiry, and (d)

case study. Action research allows the researcher to develop solutions to real

organizational problems by closely collaborating with the practitioners of the

organizations (Nielsen, 2016; Saunders et al., 2015). Ethnography is the firsthand

experience and exploration of a particular social or cultural setting by participant

observation (Sinead Ryan, 2017). Narrative inquiry involves collecting the stories of the

participant’s experience to interpret an event or sequence of events (Saunders et al.,

2015). I selected a multiple holistic case study design in which I performed empirical

investigations of a particular phenomenon. Larrinaga (2017) noted that the researcher

could reinforce analytical generalizations through multiple case studies by producing

affirmative evidence based on two or more cases. Conducting in-depth inquiries with

multiple participants regarding the importance of cross-cultural understanding for post-

M&A integrations in a real-life setting, I tested whether I could replicate the findings

from one case across other cases because the main advantage to multiple case studies is to

reinforce internal validity and theoretical replication (see Larrinaga, 2017).

Research Question

What strategies do leaders of ICT companies use to integrate diverse workers after

cross-border M&As?

Interview Questions

1. What potential conflicts or frustrations, if anything, did you observe

between the acquired workers and home-country workers’ regarding different views of

relationships between supervisors and subordinates that had to be addressed to other

leaders to ensure the success of the post-M&A integration?

2. To integrate the acquired workers and home-country workers, what

strategies are most successful for managing their different behaviors regarding the

relationships between the supervisors and the subordinates?

3. What potential conflicts or frustrations, if anything, did you observe

between the acquired workers and home-country workers when they dealt with uncertain

information or ambiguous communications that had to be addressed to other leaders to

ensure the success of post-M&A integrations?

4. To integrate the acquired workers and home-country workers, how do you

deal with their different attitudes toward uncertainties or ambiguous communications and

manage misunderstandings between them?

5. What potential conflicts or frustrations, if anything, did you observe

between the acquired workers and the home-country workers regarding their different

levels of assertiveness or modesty in attitudes toward their colleagues that had to be

addressed to other leaders to ensure the success of post-M&A integrations?

6. To integrate the acquired workers and home-country workers, how do you

manage the conflicts in the workplace relating to their different levels of assertiveness or

modesty?

7. What potential conflicts or frustrations, if anything, did you observe

between acquired workers and home-country workers regarding their work styles, either

working in groups or working independently, that had to be addressed to other leaders to

ensure the success of post-M&A integrations?

8. To integrate the acquired workers and home-country workers, how do you

manage their different reactions toward working in groups or working independently?

9. What potential conflicts or frustrations, if anything, did you observe

between the acquired workers and home-country workers regarding the views about

adopting different business practices that had to be addressed to other leaders to ensure

the success of post-M&A integrations?

10. To integrate the acquired workers and home-country workers, how do you

manage their different views and reactions regarding adopting different business

practices?

11. What additional information could you kindly share with me regarding the

successful strategies you use to integrate the workers with different national cultural

backgrounds that have to be addressed to other leaders to ensure the success of post-

M&A integration?

Conceptual Framework

To investigate strategies the leaders of ICT companies use to integrate workers

they acquired after completing the cross-border M&As, I grounded my study with two

conceptual frameworks: Haspeslagh and Jemison’s (1991) acquisition integration

approach model and Hofstede’s (2001) five dimensions of national cultures theory. In the

acquisition and integration approach model, Haspeslagh and Jemison suggested that

business leaders could improve an acquisition’s potential and contribute to strategic

renewal by better managing postacquisition integration processes. In a cross-border

acquisition, diverse workers from different national cultures can cause cultural clashes

that the leader of the newly created organization may find it difficult to resolve, which

may lead the organization to fail in achieving objectives of the acquisition (Hirsch, 2015;

Stahl & Tung, 2015). Cultural conflicts may not emerge as a result of cultural diversities

but may arise depending on how leaders of the merged firms recognize the cultural

differences between the acquiring and acquired firms and manage all combined

employees (Caiazza & Volpe, 2015). Hildisch, Froese, and Pak (2015) found that top

management and supervisor support had positive effects on employees’ work attitudes.

By analyzing the differences in national cultures of the employees, the leaders may be

able to predict potential negative consequences related to employee stress, depression, or

indifferent attitudes toward cooperation and to reduce conflicting business values and

communication styles for building new capabilities (Caiazza & Volpe, 2015) so that the

leaders may be able to lead their organization to create new value as the stakeholders

initially aimed to attain as a goal of the cross-border acquisition.

Hofstede (1983) developed the national cultural theory based on four dimensions

to explain cross-cultural decision-making differences: power distance, uncertainty

avoidance, individualism versus collectivism, and masculinity versus femininity.

Hofstede (2001) later added long-term orientation as the fifth dimension to distinguish the

ways of thinking between the East and the West. The scores that Hofstede (1983, 2001)

developed based on five cultural dimensions for each country may be helpful to measure

how national cultures of the acquired firms’ workers might differ from those of acquiring

firms. As applied in the current study, the differences in each of the five dimensions

between the acquiring and acquired firms indicated that I would be able to provide the

integration managers with useful tactics to handle challenges and conflicts that might

negatively affect relationships between the home-country and host-country workers.

Using Hofstede’s (1983, 2001) theory, I also expected to find information to align

acquired foreign workers with the newly created firm’s overall strategies and common

business goals that might apply to other future cross-border M&A cases. Leaders of

acquiring firms may find it beneficial to learn different national cultures of the workers

from the target firms (Ahammad, Tarba, Liu, & Glaister, 2016; Ai & Tan, 2017; Yan,

Wu, & Zhang, 2016). Hofstede’s (2001) theory depicts how differences in cultural

dimensions may influence the creation of value of the people in the workplace and may

represent independent preferences for one state of affairs over another that distinguish the

countries from each other. Therefore, I used both Haspeslah and Jemison’s (1991)

acquisition integration approach model and Hofstede’s (1983, 2001) five dimensions of

national cultures theory to provide a framework for this study and explore strategies the

leaders of the internationally acquiring firms use to manage their postacquisition cultural

integrations.

Operational Definitions

The following terms appear throughout this study. I provide definitions so that

readers understand the intended meaning of terms I used. I did not include terms found in

a basic dictionary and listed only the terms that the reader might not be familiar with.

Acculturation: A phenomenon in which the cultural patterns of groups with

different cultural backgrounds interact with each other causing their cultural elements to

diffuse between the two cultures when these groups engage in long-term, direct

interaction (Cui et al., 2016).

Assimilation: In mergers and acquisitions, one party adopts another party’s

identity and culture (Cui et al., 2016).

Cultural distance: The difference between countries in terms of norms, ideas,

values, and beliefs (Azar & Drogendijk, 2016).

Culture: The collective programming of the mind that distinguishes the members

of one group or category from people from another group (Hofstede, 2001).

Individualism/collectivism: The degree to which people in society are integrated

into groups (Hofstede, 2001).

Integration process: A value creation and an adaptive process of interaction that

takes place when firms come together in an atmosphere conducive for people from both

organizations to collaborate and transfer capabilities as a result of the acquisition so that

the merged organization can create the expected benefits or discover others (Haspeslagh

& Jemison, 1991).

Long-/short-term orientation: The degree to which the people connect the past

with the current and future actions/challenges (Hofstede, 2001).

Masculinity/femininity: A society’s favor for male-attributed traits such as

assertiveness or materialism, or female-attributed traits such as altruism and modesty

(Stoermer et al., 2016).

Power distance: The degree to which societies handle inequality and how strongly

they accept status differences (Stoermer et al., 2016).

Uncertainty avoidance: The extent to which societies are comfortable or

uncomfortable with unstructured situations and try to avoid ambiguity or unknown

situations (C. J. Chang, Ho, & Wu, 2016; Stoermer et al., 2016).

Assumptions, Limitations, and Delimitations

My goal in conducting a qualitative study was to explore strategies by

interviewing participants and examining relevant company documents, websites, social

network service (SNS) pages, and employee testimonials for data triangulation purposes

to enhance the reliability and trustworthiness of the study (see Annansingh & Howell,

2016). The quality and reliability of the study findings may depend on the degree of trust

between the researcher and the participants and their openness, truthfulness, and fairness

in perceptions of different cultures (Ajmal, Helo, & Kassem, 2017). I hoped that

participants would provide detailed descriptions of their experiences in successful and

unsuccessful integration efforts after completing the cross-border acquisition process.

Assumptions

Assumptions are unexamined assertions that the researcher considers true as

guidance to initiate the study (Cavalcanti, 2017). In conducting this qualitative multiple

case study, I made six assumptions. First, I assumed participants would have sufficient

knowledge and would be honest in answering interview questions given to them as long

as I listened carefully and kept rapport with them (see Farooq & de Villiers, 2017).

Second, I assumed the sample size would provide sufficient data to answer the research

question. Sampling until the researcher reaches data saturation can be used as a

justification for the particular sample size used in a qualitative study (Boddy, 2016).

Third, I assumed the conceptual framework and the theory I chose would be suitable to

analyze the data. A researcher can explain the phenomena by use of the theory or

conceptual framework as a lens to study the phenomena (Gaus, 2017).

Fourth, I assumed the semistructured interview protocol would enable dialectic

initiative by key informers (see Larrinaga, 2017) and would be the most appropriate

research tool to generate rich qualitative data given the potential institutional sensitivity

of the information being sought (see Martinus & Hedgcock, 2015). Fifth, I assumed the

purposeful sampling method would be appropriate to ensure that all participants were

aware of the specific business problem addressed in this study. Using a purposeful

sampling method, the researcher can discover, understand, and gain insights into specific

cases to learn about issues of importance to the purpose of the inquiry (Cibangu,

Hepworth, & Champion, 2017). Finally, I assumed that successful leaders of acquiring

organizations, when combining two different national cultures of acquiring and acquired

organizations, would not only demand that the acquired workers assimilate their national

cultures into those of the acquiring firms, but also take the lead in fostering the diffusion

of different cultural patterns and elements between the two cultures through long-term

direct interaction (see Cui et al., 2016).

Limitations

Limitations are potential weaknesses of the reliability of the results and

transferability of the conclusions (Larrinaga, 2017). Although the purposeful sampling

method I chose was appropriate for this study, I may have encountered challenges in

identifying the sample because I would not have known the range of variation in the

sample at the outset of the study (see Palinkas et al., 2015). Also, participants might have

had biases and might have provided only publicly pleasing or politically correct feedback

instead of honest feedback during interviews. Participants may not have provided candid

responses to avoid potential misinterpretation by me, or because the feedback may not be

considered socially acceptable or may be considered xenophobic. I required participants

to consent orally to recorded interviews, which might have caused some participants to

withhold information for confidentiality or privacy reasons. Participants might also have

affected the accuracy and reliability of the study findings if they did not have sufficient

knowledge of Hofstede’s (2001) five dimensions of national cultures at the time the

participants implemented their integration strategies. Finally, although the conceptual

framework I chose was appropriate to analyze the data for this study, the conceptual

framework might have had weaknesses (see Angwin & Meadows, 2015; de Mooij, 2015;

Garcia, Mendez, Ellis, & Gautney, 2014; Saleem, Larimo, Ummik, & Kuusik, 2015;

Tanaka & Kleiner, 2015; Touburg, 2016).

Delimitations

A delimitation is a boundary that the researcher defines for an integrated system

of the business phenomenon to investigate (Yazan, 2015). I selected participants who

were business leaders of selected organizations that had implemented cross-border

acquisitions and successfully supervised integration processes of the acquired foreign

employees into the acquiring organization in the ICT sector in North America, Europe,

and Asia. The leaders originally belonged to acquiring organizations and were

responsible for developing favorable organizational cultures during the integration phase

of the cross-border acquisition. I considered the leader successful in integrating a diverse

workforce after the cross-border acquisition if the merged organization had been

operating continuously for more than 5 years since the time the cross-border M&A deal

was closed, or had started international business operations under joint venture or

partnership and experienced growth in sales, net profits, or share prices. I further

restricted my selection of participants to leaders who were expatriates assigned from

acquiring organizations living in the host countries where their foreign partners were

located and who were supervising local workers and other expatriates from the countries

of origin. Expatriates in the host countries might hold more experience in cross-cultural

adjustment and be facing complex challenges to work with foreign employees with

different national cultures on a daily basis than the leaders based in headquarters

(Canhilal, Shemueli, & Dolan, 2015).

Significance of the Study

Contribution to Business Practice

This study may contribute to a desirable work environment for the workers of an

integrated organization created as a result of a cross-border M&A. This study may also be

beneficial to the leaders of the acquirers in the cross-border M&As in enhancing their

abilities to integrate targets to achieve expected business results. By understanding the

challenges and solutions to incorporate cultural differences between the acquirer and the

target, the manager of a newly created organization may be able to motivate its workers

and managers to align themselves with the organizational strategy. To gain necessary

knowledge of acquired workers’ cultures, leaders of the merged firms may often need to

retain some directors of target firms holding more directorships or experience as top

management in the target firms in managing the workers of the target firms (Xie, Cai, Lu,

Liu, & Takumi, 2016). The results of the study may help integration leaders reduce the

risk of failing to achieve their expected business outcomes.

Implications for Social Change

The implications for positive social change from this study include the potential

improvement in human relationships across the countries that have distinct ethnic groups

and diverse cultures. This study’s findings may serve the people living in different

societies as a guide to enhance their ways of communicating and interacting with a proper

understanding of other cultures (Ghauri & Rosendo-Rios, 2016). Using the findings in

this study, the people in home and host countries may also be able to predict how their

neighbors originating from different countries may react to the same phenomena, issues,

or agenda. By acknowledging the differences in national cultures existing in a diverse

society, an individual should be able to avoid xenophobic sentiment against other people

in the reciprocal cultural environment (Andriuskevicius & Ciegis, 2017).

Failures in cross-border M&As may affect not only financial performance of the

firms, but also stakeholders’ mentality and family well-being, which may cause

deterioration of the economy of the communities (Moilanen, 2016). Increasing the

success rates of cross-border M&As may foster spillover effects in home and host

countries, such as improved lifestyles as a result of adopting innovative technologies not

initially available in the society before the advent of foreign subsidiaries through the

cross-border M&As (Liang, 2017; Muqiang, Chengling, & Lee, 2017). By improving the

success rate of cross-border M&A integrations, this study may also contribute to helping

multinational organizations to reduce the likelihood of triggering an economic downturn

in the society and to provide the society with new lifestyles through the spillover of

innovative technologies, products, processes, and services developed in the foreign

countries (Liang, 2017; Muqiang et al., 2017).

A Review of the Professional and Academic Literature

The purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to explore strategies the

leaders of ICT companies use to integrate a diverse workforce following cross-border

M&As using the knowledge and experience relating to national cultures of both acquiring

and target organization workers. Cross-border M&As are a complex phenomenon

compared to domestic M&As (Sinkovics, Sinkovics, Lew, Jedin, & Zagelmeyer, 2015).

For this study, I used Haspeslagh and Jemison’s (1991) acquisition integration approach

model and Hofstede’s (2001) five dimensions of national cultural theory as the

conceptual framework to address the research question: What strategies do leaders of ICT

companies use to integrate diverse workers after cross-border M&As?

The literature review begins with a review of a theory and a conceptual model that

a leader of a multinational organization may adopt in management practices. Next, I shift

the focus to cross-cultural integration and management challenges of diverse workforces

after cross-border M&As. The final section of the review focuses on the link between

cross-cultural knowledge and the success of cross-border postacquisition integrations.

My review of the literature included 134 references, 122 (91.0%) of which were

peer-reviewed articles published within the past 5 years, including one book. I collected

references from the Walden University online library and accessed multiple databases

including EBSCOhost, ERIC, ProQuest, and Google Scholar to retrieve relevant

scholarly articles. Table 1 indicates the number of items reviewed.

Table 1

Items Reviewed in the Review of Literature

References

(Within the last 5 years

from 2015 to 2019)

References

Older than 5 years

Total

Books 1 2 3

Peer-reviewed journals 122 7 129

Not peer-reviewed journals 1 0 1

Other resources 1 0 1

Using advanced search engines provided in these academic databases, I retrieved

peer-reviewed scholarly articles published within 3 years from the date I performed the

search that might be suitable for this literature review. From the cross-cultural

management perspectives, I sought to investigate how the information gathered might

contribute to understanding the challenges for business leaders to conduct cross-border

M&As and integrate diverse workers. Collaborations among all stakeholders between the

acquirer and the target are an important process that involves leaders, board members,

managers, and employees (Sinkovics et al., 2015). I covered the literature that focused on

contemporary issues related to cross-border M&As and conflict management specific to a

multicultural work environment in which different perspectives and expectations of

stakeholders, shareholders, board members, and employees would coexist. Studying

cross-border M&A integration strategies might be helpful in generating knowledge to

analyze similarities and differences in communication practices across the globe

(Hoffmann, Röttger, Ingenhoff, & Hamidati, 2015).

Some business leaders viewed cross-border M&A as a strategic growth scheme in

the global competition to meet stakeholders’ expectations by creating competitive

advantages, diversifying risks, entering the international market, overcoming adverse

government policy, enhancing productivity, increasing market power, and gaining

knowledge and technological spillovers (M. Hu & Ngo, 2015). Although business leaders

might be aware of the effects of cross-border M&As, Jedin and Saad (2016) found more

than a half of the cross-border M&As were unsuccessful in meeting stakeholders’

expectations to create value. Some researchers criticized national cultural differences as

one of the reasons for the high rate of failure of multicultural management of

organizations (Hofstede, 2015). In this section, I explore the effects of national cultural

differences between the acquirers and targets on successes or failures of postacquisition

multicultural management.

Theories and Conceptual Frameworks

I based this study on Haspeslagh and Jemison’s (1991) acquisition integration

approach model and Hofstede’s (2001) five dimensions of national cultural theory. The

acquisition integration approach model and the national cultural dimensions theory

aligned with this study addressing the challenges that leaders of ICT multinationals might

face during the integration process after completing cross-border M&A deals. In a

crossborder M&A, national cultural differences might not only be an impeding factor for

the integration of the acquired firm but could also be a crucial hindrance for the firm’s

organizational learning process, potentially causing a negative impact on the firm’s

performance (Nuno, Carvalho, & José, 2015). The integration managers may need to

understand the differences in national cultures between the acquiring and acquired firms’

backgrounds to create new value and to implement new organizational strategies because

the worker integration would be a critical success factor for cross-border M&As (Yan et

al., 2016).

Haspeslagh’s integration acquisition approaching model. Haspeslagh and

Jemison (1991) introduced a concept that business leaders could improve an acquisition’s

potential to contribute to strategic renewal by better managing the preacquisition

decision-making and the postacquisition integration processes. The postacquisition

integration would be an essential process through which the business leader might be able

to identify new insights into how to reallocate resources to more productive uses and

more efficiently renew strategies for the merged firm (Haspeslagh & Jemison, 1991).

Some acquisition leaders do not reach their potential because the leaders fail to create an

environment in which workers can exchange information and transfer valuable

knowledge or technologies to create value (Haspeslagh & Jemison, 1991). Leaders can

create value after the acquisition deal is closed and employees of acquiring and acquired

firms start collaborating by transferring capabilities and colluding to realize the potential

benefits and to discover others (Haspeslagh & Jemison, 1991).

When studying the success factors of M&As, Haspeslagh and Jemison (1991)

suggested that researchers should not only focus on preacquisition decision-making but

should also address the importance of postacquisition integration processes. Risberg

(2003) observed that extant research focused little attention on the perspectives of

acquired organizations related to cross-border M&A integrations. Risberg found

representations of the managers rather than the whole organization even though

researchers discussed employee reactions as well. Haspeslagh and Jemison argued that

key differences between acquisition success and failure should be understood in the

management of processes by which acquired workers are integrated. Scholars might need

to conduct studies on acquisitions from leaders and employees’ perspectives to reflect

voices not only from an acquiring organization but also from an acquired target (Risberg,

2003). Studying both the acquirers and the target’s perspectives might be necessary

because the leaders of the acquiring firms can disrupt the acquired firm’s cultures and

capabilities during the integration process, leading to failure in achieving the objectives

of the acquisition (Haspeslagh & Jemison, 1991).

Maintaining the cultures of an acquired target might be essential for an integration

leader to minimize conflicts between the workers from both organizations during the

integration phase and to create synergy and new value with the acquired firm (Haspeslagh

& Jemison, 1991). In their study of connective leadership and mediation effects on

integration conflicts between the acquirer and acquired, Yan et al. (2016) showed that

connective leadership could positively mediate employee goal commitment during the

M&A integration phase. To reduce conflicts between the acquiring organization and the

acquired target, connective leaders could employ a wide range of behaviors and find

similarities and common interests for the acquirer and target (Yan et al., 2016). The

leader might be able to motivate personnel and gain management’s commitment by

conducting sociocultural integration successfully (Haspeslagh & Jemison, 1991). For

managers to integrate acquired workers into the acquiring organization, the managers

should consider cultural distances of the acquired workers to predict worker stress and

negative sentiments about the merger and the cooperation (Risberg, 2003) because

cultural clashes could create difficulties in integration and hinder expected outcomes

(Risberg, 2003).

Criticism of the acquisition integration approach model. Some researchers

argued that Haspeslagh and Jemison’s (1991) model has limitations. Angwin and

Meadows (2015) noted that Haspeslagh and Jemison focused solely on value capturing

acquisitions and did not analyze the acquisitions that were not driven by a value-creation

strategy. For instance, an organization might purchase a company in a different country

wishing to benefit from exchange rate differentials (M. Hu & Ngo, 2015), enter a new

country to gain its market share (M. Hu & Ngo, 2015), announce an M&A in the stock

market (Sharma, 2016), and obtain tax advantages (M. Hu & Ngo, 2015). Haspeslagh and

Jemison might have developed the acquisition integration model from a partial set of

acquisition strategies that lacked other potential integration objectives (Angwin &

Meadows, 2015). Cultural differences might cause a negative impact on postacquisition

integration if the leaders implement an acquisition internationally (De Luque, Lee, Miska,

& Stahl, 2017). In addition to taking organizational cultural differences into account, the

integration managers may need to handle friction resulting from differences in national

cultures (Hirsch, 2015).

Some researchers criticized Haspeslagh and Jemison’s (1991) acquisition

integration approach model by stating there were no examples used in the research

(Angwin & Meadows, 2015). Although the postacquisition integration phase was widely

recognized as a vital process in M&As, Haspeslagh and Jemison’s model appeared to be

a pure concept that was insufficiently supported by empirical evidence (Angwin &

Meadows, 2015). The integration challenges examined in Haspeslagh and Jemison’s

study (as cited in Risberg, 2003) focused on corporate cultural differences. Although

acquirers of foreign companies should also pay close attention to national cultures in

addition to corporate culture fit, Haspeslagh and Jemison’s model (as cited in Bansal,

2015) should provide fundamental principles of human and task integration mechanisms.

Hofstede’s five dimensions of national cultures theory. To identify the cases of

cross-border M&As implemented between culturally distant countries, I used Hofstede’s

(2001) indices of five dimensions of national cultures. Hofstede developed national

cultural indices in 1980 based on four dimensions: (a) power distance (PD), which

describes how societies handle inequality and how strongly they accept status differences

(Stoermer et al., 2016) related to different solutions and decisions regarding human

inequality (Hofstede, 2015); (b) uncertainty avoidance (UA), or society’s reaction to

unpredictable situations and tolerance for ambiguity (C. J. Chang et al., 2016; Hofstede,

2015; Stoermer et al., 2016); (c) individualism/collectivism (IC), or the degree to which

individuals prefer taking after themselves or show high group orientations (Hofstede,

2015; Stoermer et al., 2016); and (d) masculinity versus femininity (MF), which is a

society’s preference for male-attributed traits such as assertiveness and materialism or

female-attributed traits such as altruism and modesty (Hofstede, 2015; Stoermer et al.,

2016). Hofstede later added the (e) long-/short-term orientation (LTO) dimension in

2001, which refers to the culture’s propensity to adopt a pragmatic long-term view toward

social and business relationships (Stoermer et al., 2016; Touburg, 2016).

Researchers often attribute multicultural management problems to national

cultures or cultural differences among employees (Hofstede, 2015). Managers should

motivate newly acquired workers to acculturate themselves with new philosophies,

policies, and organizational and national cultures from the acquiring firm (Haspeslagh &

Jemison, 1991). In a cross-border M&A, two organizations in different countries merge

and operate toward the same organizational goals (Sharma, 2016). Employees from

acquiring and acquired organizations need to understand respective national cultures to

align themselves with new strategies that the leader of the acquiring firm might plan

(Haspeslagh & Jemison, 1991).

Studying communication styles that appeared on Fortune 500 corporations’

Facebook pages, Lo, Waters, and Christensen (2017) found statistical differences

regarding Hofstede’s cultural dimensions, particularly when examining the individual

elements of the five dimensions. PD and MF dimensions were most represented by the

country-specific communications where corporation headquarters were located, followed

by IC, UA, and LTO (Lo et al., 2017). Although each of the Fortune 500 corporations

examined in Lo et al.’s study had their headquarters in a different culture, each

corporation was a global entity that set up subsidiaries spread throughout many different

cultures. Lo et al.’s study may be valuable in recognizing the influence of national

cultures of the countries of origin of multinationals regarding the communication styles

and could be applicable to a study of effects of national cultures in communications of an

acquiring firm in a cross-border M&A.

Influence of PD on cultural integration. Hofstede (as cited in Tanaka & Kleiner,

2015) defined PD as the level of willingness to accept unequal distribution of power in

organizations. People in high PD cultures might accept inequality in power distribution

and be prone to obeying powerful people whereas people in low PD cultures might not

(Curtis, Conover, Lucianetti, & Battista, 2016; Hofstede, 2015). People possessing higher

power could exercise authority and might coerce the people with lower power, even if an

anticipated result might be a conflict with the interest of people with low power (Y.

Chang, Hsu, Shiau, & Tsai, 2015). A leader with strong, aggressive characters could

control the people in high PD cultures because the people in high PD cultures would

accept and follow their leader’s behavior and directions (Hofstede, 2001, 2011). In

contrast, a leader who practiced authority to manage employees might not be successful

in establishing a positive relationship with employees in a low PD culture (Zhang &

Oczkowski, 2016). People in a low PD culture might not appreciate inequality in power

relations with the leader (Hosfstede, 2001, 2011).

Hofstede (2011) summarized the major characteristics related to PD. The

following items are some business-related characteristics associated with low PD

cultures:

1. Use of power should be legitimate and is subject to the criteria of good and

evil.

2. Older people are neither respected nor feared.

3. Hierarchy means inequality of roles established for convenience.

4. Subordinates expect to be consulted.

5. Corruption is rare, scandals end political careers, and income distribution in

society is rather even.

6. Religions stress equality of believers.

PD appeared to be lower in Germanic and English-speaking Western countries

(Hofstede, 2015). Some examples of low PD countries are the United States (40), United

Kingdom (35), Austria (11), Denmark (18), and New Zealand (22) (Hofstede, 2001;

Purwanto, 2018). If a mix of high PD and low PD cultures existed in the workplace, the

different perceptions toward authority could influence success in human resource

management in the organization (Purwanto, 2018). It might be more difficult for a leader

in a high PD culture to manage workers in low PD culture (Purwanto, 2018). When a

managerial expatriate in a high PD culture was sent to a low PD environment, the

manager’s authority might be challenged in a more liberal and equal society in the low

PD culture because the manager might be accustomed to using executive powers in

decision-making whereas workers would not tolerate highly centralized power (Zhang &

Oczkowski, 2016).

The following items are some business-related characteristics associated with high

PD cultures:

1. Power is a basic fact of society antedating good or evil, its legitimacy is

irrelevant.

2. Older people are both respected and feared.

3. Hierarchy means existential inequality.

4. Subordinates expect to be told what to do.

5. Autocratic governments based on co-optation and changed by revolution.

6. Corruption frequent, scandals are covered up.

7. Income distribution in society very uneven.

8. Religions with a hierarchy of priests.

Some examples of high PD countries are China (80), Malaysia (104), Mexico

(81), and Philippines (94), and PD appeared to be higher in the East European, Latin,

Asian and African countries (Hofstede, 2011). The power distance has moderating effects

on job satisfaction in management (Purwanto, 2018). In high PD cultures, managers were

likely to have large managerial discretion whereas each individual was not supposed to

make organizational decisions without the manager’s input (Zhang & Oczkowski, 2016).

Individuals in high PD cultures might be motivated to get a better position within an

organization (Purwanto, 2018).

Influence of UA on cultural integration. UA refers to the extent to which people

in a culture feel uncomfortable with uncertain or unstructured situations (C. J. Chang et

al., 2016; Hofstede, 2001, 2015). The motivating force in high UA cultures could be fear,

though not of specific others and generalized anxiety in the face of anyone or anything

unknown (Hofstede, 2015). In a high UA country, uncertainty is also linked to potential

status loss for acting in strange ways because such action may release anxieties in others

(Hofstede, 2015). People in high UA cultures might feel threatened by ambiguous or

uncertain situations and would think that different is dangerous and tended to avoid

unstructured situations (Curtis et al., 2016). Conversely, people in low UA cultures might

feel more comfortable in ambiguous or unstructured situations and were tolerant to risky,

unfamiliar conditions (C. J. Chang et al., 2016). Uncertainty tolerance might be seen as

looser attitudes characterized by saving effort when nothing was the matter and by

goaldirectedness, not process-based, when results were needed (Hofstede, 2015).

According to Hofstede (2011), the following items are some business-related

characteristics associated with low UA cultures:

1. The uncertainty inherent in life is accepted and each day is taken as it

comes.

2. Ease, lower stress, self-control, low anxiety.

3. Higher scores on subjective health and well-being.

4. Tolerance of deviant persons and ideas what is different is curious.

5. Comfortable with ambiguity and chaos.

6. Teachers may say I don’t know.

7. Changing jobs no problem.

8. Dislike of rules.

9. In politics, citizens feel and are seen as competent toward authorities.

10. In religion, philosophy and science (i.e., relativism and empiricism).

Countries with low UA cultures include some English speaking, Nordic, and

Asian countries such as the United States (40), United Kingdom (35), Denmark (23) and

Singapore (8), according to Hofstede (2001). A manager who had a predisposition for a

low UA could more tolerate anxieties of facing unforeseen future events and would be

more inclined to start newprojects even if the projects might be assessed as high risk

because people from low UA cultures were more comfortable in ambiguous situations

and had high risk tolerance under unfamiliar conditions (C. J. Chang et al., 2016). People

in low UA cultures might be innovative in technology development due to their general

tendency to be able to tolerate uncertain scenarios and accept losing jobs in case the

project was not successful (Curtis et al., 2016). Companies in low UA cultures may also

be more open in financial disclosures as well (Khlif, 2016).

Characteristics of high UA cultures are as follows:

1. The uncertainty inherent in life is felt as a continuous threat that must be

fought.

2. Higher stress, emotionality, anxiety, neuroticism.

3. Lower scores on subjective health and well-being.

4. Intolerance of deviant persons and ideas: what is different is dangerous.

5. Need for clarity and structure.

6. Teachers supposed to have all the answers.

7. Staying in jobs even if disliked.

8. Emotional need for rules even if not obeyed.

9. In politics, citizens feel and are seen as incompetent toward authorities.

10. In religion, philosophy and science (i.e., belief in ultimate truths and grand

theories).

Countries rated with high UA scores tend to prevail in East and Central European

countries, Latin countries, Japan, and some German-speaking countries. Some countries

with high UA cultures include Greece (112), Belgium (94), and Japan (92) (Hofstede,

2011). Managers in high UA cultures might be less willing to initiate a project than

managers in low culture countries and would not be inclined to change their on-going

projects once started because they were likely to feel threatened if results of the project in

the future were not certain (C. J. Chang et al., 2016). Managers in high UA cultures might

be uncomfortable with information disclosures to protect their positions and, thus, might

appear less transparent in the workplace (Maali & Al-Attar, 2017).

Influence of IC on cultural integration. People in individualistic cultures would

be likely to act in their own self-interest, whereas people in collectivistic cultures tended

to encourage loyalty to the groups or organizations (Curtis et al., 2016). In an

individualistic society, people were the units worthy of status and could accept existence

of heroes within networks of friends, media stars, sportspeople, politicians or deities

(Hofstede, 2015). In collectivistic cultures, groups such as families, countries, or religious

communities, and there was likely to be one inclusive reference group, the extended

family, clan, or people, overwhelming the others (Hofstede, 2015). Age and gender could

also be important factors in a collectivistic culture because these factors could influence

one’s position within a group (Hofstede, 2015).

To investigate phenomena induced by different IC levels among diverse workers,

Blecking (2015) conducted a case study of cultural integration of immigrants into host

countries by examining Polish migrants to the mining industry areas of Ruhr, Germany,

from the 1870s. Aiming to understand immigrants’ behaviors during the integration

process whether the immigrants had a cultural background different from that of the host

country, Blecking found that a sport played a vital role in forming a we culture, one of the

most conspicuous aspects of collectivistic cultures (as cited in Hofstede, 2001), and in

bridging between different nationalities and concluded that the sport as a mediator for

cultural integration could provide an important hint to manage diverse work teams

consisted of different IC levels. Blecking included only Polish and German nationals in

the study, who possessed football-loving cultures in common.The fact that the difference

in IC levels between Polish (60) and Germans (67) was seven (Hofstede, 2001) might not

represent as suitable examples to investigate an integration process of different IC-level

countries (Curtis et al., 2016).

The following items are some business-related characteristics associated with low

IC, collectivistic cultures:

1. People are born into extended families or clans that protect them in exchange

for loyalty.

2. We –consciousness.

3. Stress on belonging.

4. Harmony should always be maintained.

5. Others classified as in-group or out-group.

6. Opinions and votes predetermined by in-group; transgression of norms leads

to shame feelings.

7. Languages in which the word I is avoided.

8. Purpose of education is learning how to do.

9. Relationship prevails over the task.

In collectivist societies, people belong to ‘in groups’ that cares for insiders in

exchange for loyalty Maali & Al-Attar, 2017). People in societies with collectivistic

orientation tend to emphasize responsibility to insiders as opposed to those external to the

firm, thus, firms in collectivitic cultures are expected to disclose less information to

outsiders (Maali & Al-Attar, 2017). In contrast to individualistic cultures, the

collectivistic culture would moderate the relationship between reputation and

knowledgesharing intentions (Y. Chang et al., 2015). In collectivistic cultures,

interdependence would not imply that people do not always make decisions

independently, although the influence of group members on the decisions might be

stronger than in individualistic cultures (de Mooij, 2015). In collectivistic cultures, the

relationship between the employee and the employer was perceived in moral terms, and

the workers generally preferred job training, satisfactory workplace conditions, and good

benefits (Park, 2016).

The following items are some business-related characteristics associated with high

IC, individualistic cultures:

1. Everyone is supposed to take care of him- or herself and his or her immediate

family only.

2. I – consciousness.

3. Right of privacy.

4. Speaking one’s mind is healthy.

5. Others classified as individuals.

6. Personal opinion expected: one person one vote.

7. Transgression of norms leads to guilt feelings.

8. Languages in which the word I is indispensable.

9. Purpose of education is learning how to learn.

10. Task prevails over the relationship.

Individualism appeared to prevail in developed countries in the Western

hemisphere while collectivism is predominant in less developed and Eastern countries

(Hofstede, 2015). The fact that IC scores of the United States and China were 91 and 20

respectively (Hofstede, 1983) could indicate that the United States would be one of the

most individualistic cultures in the world as opposed to China that could represent one of

the most collectivistic cultures (Y. Chang et al., 2015). In individualistic societies, people

focused generally on themselves (Maali & Al-Attar, 2017). According to Y. Chang et al.

(2015), the individualistic cultures were found to moderate the relationship between

rewards and knowledge-sharing intentions in the United States. Countries that score high

on individualism exhibited high esteem for privacy, high respect for personal

decisionmaking, and low dependence on the organization for fulfilling leisure time, high

demand for improving skills, and high interest in receiving benefits, which tended to

affect the working environment for diverse workers (Park, 2016). Individualistic cultures

also showed less hierarchy in human relationships, but the majority of of the people in an

individualistic culture tended to move in the same direction (Beugelsdijk, Kostova, &

Roth, 2017).

Influence of MF on cultural integration. Hofstede (1983) revealed that the

difference in MF levels between the people from two countries could indicate whether the

people from one country might be more assertive and competitive or, vice versa, more

modest and caring than the people from other countries. The assertiveness would be

related to masculine cultures, and the modest, caring values would be more associated

with feminine ones (Hofstede, 2011). Males were more likely to hold masculine values,

and females hold more feminine cultures (Hofstede, 2011), but the men in feminine

countries had the similar modest, caring values as the women (Hofstede, 1983, 2011).

Females in positions of power in both masculine and feminine societies often showed

more masculine values than their male nationals (Hofstede, 1983, 2001, 2015). In contrast

to the feminine countries, women were somewhat more assertive and competitive in

masculine countries though were not as much as the men (Hofstede, 2011). Thus,

Hofstede (1983, 2001) suggested there would be more gaps in values between men and

women in masculine countries.

Differences in MF levels might also serve as an indicator of people’s preference

for either power-oriented or status-oriented social relations and was about voluntary

status-accord to others based on their performance in competitive settings (Hofstede,

2015). Exploring people in countries with different MF cultures, the researcher might find

people in interaction tended to seek status either by winning competitive sequences or by

aligning themselves with powerful winners such as presidential candidates, deities, or

sports heroes (Hofstede, 2015). People in a low MF or feminine culture might not feel

comfortable with overt power moves and status displays because of the mentality that

might arise envy of winners rather than admiration for them (Hofstede, 2015).

The following items are some business-related characteristics associated with low

MF or feminine cultures:

1. Minimum emotional and social role differentiation between the genders.

2. Men and women should be modest and caring.

3. Balance between family and work sympathy for the weak.

4. Both fathers and mothers deal with facts and feelings.

5. Both boys and girls may cry but neither should fight.

6. Many women in elected political positions.

7. Religion focuses on fellow human beings.

8. Matter-of-fact attitudes about sexuality (i.e., sex is a way of relating).

Some low MF, or feminine, cultures were Norway (8) and Sweden (5), according

to Hofstede (2001). In feminine societies, the focus would be on people and a more

supportive climate might be prevalent (Yildiz & Vural, 2019). Sharing of information, the

promotion of collaboration, a warm, non-conflictive climate, and socio-emotional support

help employees to cope with the uncertainty related to new ideas (Andrijauskienė &

Dumčiuvienė, 2017). Workers in feminine cultures were oriented to the process and

consensus and were generally modest, tender, and concerned with the quality of life

(Andrijauskienė & Dumčiuvienė, 2017; Yildiz & Vural, 2019). Workers in feminine

cultures might be more open in attitude regarding financial disclosures (Khlif, 2016).

The following items are some business-related characteristics associated with high

MF or masculine cultures:

1. Maximum emotional and social role differentiation between the genders.

2. Men should be and women may be assertive and ambitious.

3. Work prevails over family admiration for the strong.

4. Fathers deal with facts, mothers with feelings.

5. Girls cry, boys don’t; boys should fight back, girls shouldn’t fight.

6. Fathers decide on family size.

7. Few women in elected political positions.

8. Religion focuses on god or gods.

9. Moralistic attitudes about sexuality (i.e., sex is a way of performing).

Masculinity is high in Japan (95), Hungary (88), in German-speaking countries,

and some Latin countries (Hofstede, 2015). In a masculine culture, people emphasized

work goals, and people tended to show assertive attitude and confidence when facing a

confrontation or challenge (Y. Chang et al., 2015; Hofstede, 2001). Masculine societies

were driven by competition, achievement, and success, and highly masculine countries

share dominant values such as clearly distinct gender roles, competitiveness and a great

emphasis on material success and economic growth. (Andrijauskienė & Dumčiuvienė,

2017; Yildiz & Vural, 2019). High degree of masculinity in one country might be more

subject to low tax compliance and, thus, high tax evasion (Khlif, 2016).

Influence of LTO on cultural integration. LTO refers to the time dimension of

decisions for one person (Khlif, 2016). People in high LTO cultures might prefer building

relationships with other stakeholders when developing joint business to preserve strong

ties with them in the future (Khlif, 2016). In contrast to LTO, short-term orientation was

about taking status conferral in the here and now seriously (Hofstede, 2001). One would

expect to confer and establish status to the full regardless of what might happen later in

the future because not achieving the expected outcome immediately would be a great

status loss (Hofstede, 2015). Long-term orientation, as opposed to short-term orientation,

was a culture to take a long-term view of life while others go for a traditional short-term

outlook (Maali & Al-Attar, 2017).

The following items are some business-related characteristics associated with low

LTO or short-term oriented cultures:

1. Most important events in life occurred in the past or take place now.

2. Personal steadiness and stability: a good person is always the same.

3. There are universal guidelines about what is good and evil.

4. Traditions are sacrosanct.

5. Family life guided by imperatives supposed to be proud of one’s country

service to others is an important goal.

6. Social spending and consumption.

7. Students attribute success and failure to luck slow or no economic growth of

poor countries.

Countries with low LTO were: Norway (20), Philippines (19), the United States

(29), and the United Kingdom (25) (Hofstede, 2001). Low LTO cultures, or high STO

cultures, depicted a cultural model in which virtues were related to present and past

traditions, and saving face was fostered (Andrijauskienė & Dumčiuvienė, 2017; Stoermer

et al., 2016). People in low LTO culture might be unwilling to accept new systems or

innovations. Low LTO cultures tended to have a distinct need for cognitive consistency

and expected to avoid integrating contradictory or novel opinions. Low LTO cultures

generally clung to traditions and long-established value systems, which might cause

adverse effects on an inclusion climate, were not future-oriented and might not engage in

the inclusion of minorities to provide the prospective benefits of diversity (Stoermer et

al., 2016).

The following items are some business-related characteristics associated with high

LTO cultures:

1. Most important events in life will occur in the future.

2. A good person adapts to the circumstances.

3. What is good and evil depends upon the circumstances.

4. Traditions are adaptable to changed circumstances.

5. Family life guided by shared tasks.

6. Trying to learn from other countries.

7. Thrift and perseverance are important goals.

8. Large savings quote, funds available for investment.

9. Students attribute success to effort and failure to lack of effort.

10. Fast economic growth of countries up till a level of prosperity.

Countries that have high LTO are China (118), Taiwan (87), and Japan (80)

(Hofstede, 2001). Cultures characterized as high LTO usually had higher innovation

capacities and encouraged workers to practice long-term thinking (Andrijauskienė &

Dumčiuvienė, 2017). In contrast with the STO cultures’ traditional short-term outlook,

high LTO cultures took a long-term view of life (Maali & Al-Attar, 2017). High LTO

executives might be more inclined to decide and act in a sustainable way (Sternad &

Kennelly, 2017). Although there was a general human tendency to undervalue future

outcomes, some managers in high LTO cultures resisted this tendency and attached a

higher value to future outcomes and focus more on long-term over short-term goals

(Sternad & Kennelly, 2017).

Controversies on Hofstede’s theory. Although Hofstede’s (2001) national cultural

theory provided significant insights into fundamental human characteristics by country

and might serve as a lens to analyze various national cultures based on numeric indices,

scholars often questioned the generalizability or validity, as well as the predictive power

of the theory. McSweeney, Brown, and Iliopoulou (2016) argued that Hofstede had

constructed neither predictive power nor predictive capability successfully in the

generalizations he developed to illustrate each cultural dimension. Hofstede’s indices

might be the broad overviews of the world’s regions as a whole, and researchers might

not be able to merely take Hofstede’s generalizations as definitions for individuals’

personalities (Tanaka & Kleiner, 2015). Improper use of dimensions of national culture

could confuse the variety of definitions of values and cultures in international marketing

(de Mooij, 2015). Although global business leaders might benefit from applying

Hofstede’s national cultural dimensions theory in multicultural management practices,

practitioners and researchers might misinterpret phenomena and discredit useful means of

research for international marketing (de Mooij, 2015).

Some scholars argued that, when reifying various cultures, Hofstede (2001) might

have assumed people were cultural dopes, ignored the influence of non-cultural factors,

did not account for changes, arbitrarily used the nation-state as the preferred locus of

culture, and had an in-built Western bias (Touburg, 2016). Hofstede initially studied IBM

employees in the 1970s (Touburg, 2016). When Hofstede drafted the first questionnaire

for selected IBM employees back in the late 1960s, Hofstede deemed the respondents to

the questionnaire as representatives of an entire country and treated an event at one point

of time as representative of all time (McSweeney et al., 2016). Stoermer et al. (2016) also

criticized Hofstede’s analysis of national cultures by noting that Hofstede based his

research on a survey solely from one company with potential bias from the Western

perspectives.

Touburg (2016) alternatively proposed a “national habitus” (p. 87) model to

describe how dispositions could develop on a national level and how the dispositions had

changed under the influence of other non-national social forces. Touburg’s extant studies

criticizing Hofstede’s national cultural theory involved few field work and might lack in

empirical supports to demonstrate how the national habits model could be more reliable

or generalizable than Hofstede’s national cultural dimensions theory. de Mooij’s (2015)

argument that researchers often misused the idea of Hofstede’s dimensions was also

developed from comparisons of concepts and literature reviews only. McSweeney et al.

(2016) also derived critiques and contested as a result of their critical thinking against the

theory with few real-world examples or data analyses or applications.

Some researchers tested the generalizability of Hofstede’s (2001) five dimensions

of national cultures theory by applying the theoretical concepts to some real-world

phenomena. Saleem, Larimo, Ummik, and Kuusik (2015) investigated advertising in

Estonia to investigate whether Hofstede’s theory could explain the different patterns in

the use of appeals in advertising. Garcia, Mendez, Ellis, and Gautney (2014) also

conducted a study of cultural differences between the United States and China by

comparing the contents of the websites of the U.S. and Chinese companies. Both Saleem

et al. and Garcia et al. found mixed or contradictory results against Hofstede’s analysis.

Through the analysis of advertising, Saleem et al. (2015) found the advertising in

Estonia reflected the paradoxical values related to low PD and MF, but the researchers

also found culturally corresponding values related to high UA and IC dimensions. Garcia

et al. (2014) also discovered some patterns inconsistent with Hofstede’s cultural analysis.

For example, although the United States marked relatively low LTO scores among the

countries, some U.S. companies’ websites displayed contents comprised of a mixture of

long- and short-term oriented characteristics (Garcia et al., 2014). Results generated by

both researchers indicated that cultural values alone might not always be the primary

determinants to provide researchers with predicting power to prognosticate what type of

the cultures might be reflected in the advertising or websites in advance.

Styles of leadership relevant to cultural integration. Zhu, Xia, and Makino

(2015) found a significant relationship between leader support and employees’ reduced

role stressors, family functioning, and emotional exhaustion in cross-border M&As.

Some researchers noted that the top management and supervisor support had more

positive effects on employees’ work attitudes than co-worker support (Hildisch et al.,

2015). In this section, I reviewed some literature in relation to two leadership conceptual

models that might be closely related in the area of cross-cultural management.

Perlmutter’s (1969) EPG model – ethno-, geo-, and poly-centric. In a

crossborder M&A, different mindsets of a leader toward acquired foreign workers could

impact on postacquisition performance and relationships between the headquarters and

the foreign subsidiary (Kostova, Marano, & Tallman, 2016). Perlmutter (1969)

introduced three distinctive multicultural management approaches: ethnocentric,

polycentric and geocentric (as cited in Lakshman, Lakshman, & Estay, 2017). Perlmutter

described ethnocentric as home-country oriented, polycentric as host-country oriented,

and geocentric as world-oriented (French, 2016). The global market was a mixture of

different cultures with different ethics and values (Garcia et al., 2014). Leaders of

multinationals having acquired overseas companies should study advantages and

disadvantages of supervising acquired workers of the foreign subsidiaries in the same

way they did in the headquarters and address relationship issues between the headquarters

and the subsidiaries (Lakshman et al., 2017).

In a cross-border M&A, a leader of an acquiring firm might behave either

geocentric or polycentric rather than ethnocentric approach if the leader recognized the

value of cultural intelligence to integrate diverse employees successfully after the merger

(Garcia et al., 2014). An integration leader with a polycentric view would acknowledge

that the target might be unique and have an abundant talent pool or might have

implemented specific training programs to grow local staff in the past, which might be

valuable to the newly merged firm (Lakshman et al., 2017). In a geocentric view, the

leader might consider appointing managers for the newly established firm from any

locations or countries of origin so that the best people could engage in handling the firm’s

challenges (Lakshman et al., 2017). The ethnocentric approach would be self-centered

(Garcia et al., 2014), and the leaders practicing an ethnocentric style would be unlikely to

adjust in the host country environment (Sonesh & DeNisi, 2016). Few acquired workers

of an internationally merged organization might engage in socialization behaviors toward

the foreign leader if the integration leader from an acquiring firm behaved with an

ethnocentric mindset (Sonesh & DeNisi, 2016).

Leadership styles for cross-cultural management. Leaders of multicultural work

teams could provoke either a positive or negative influence on team performances

(Browne, Dreitlein, Ha, Manzoni, & Mere, 2016) and should be transformational to help

improve both the organization performance and the employee well-being (Caldwell,

2015). Some critical elements for an integration leader to manage diverse workers might

involve passion, transformational global leadership, and global leaders’ transformative

mission, and abilities to resolve conflicts (Maranga & Sampayo, 2015). Transformational

leaders could broaden follower interests and motivate employees to grow beyond their

self-interest for the good of the team (Browne et al., 2016) and could create a culture

where employees developed skills and values by thriving their purposes and passions that

might arouse the curiosity and imagination required to deliver solutions (Maranga &

Sampayo, 2015). If a transformational leader discovered a relationship conflict in a

multicultural work environment, the leader would be willing to guide the team members

through personalized care and intellectual stimulation to build a friendly team atmosphere

(J. Chen, Liu, Wang, Wang, & Zheng, 2017).

Global team leaders should pay attention to human resources and communications

management because the team members and resources were spread across the globe

(Browne et al., 2016). Browne et al. (2016) found some success factors for conducting

effective global communications: (a) establishing regular communication among team

members sensitive to their time zones, (b) ensuring team members to be able to use

collaboration technology effectively, (c) providing a fully detailed project plan and

reports of the current project schedule at regular intervals, (d) ensuring the team members

to feel a sense of supports emotionally with necessary resources to perform optimally,

and (e) fostering leadership and trust among the team members. Success factors relating

to an effective global human resources management would be to (a) provide training to

close any knowledge gaps related to project technology or skills needed to meet

objectives, (b) provide opportunities for team members to learn about each other’s

cultural and personal attributes in a safe and open environment, (c) encourage team

members to avoid premature biased assumptions, (d) acknowledge cultural and language

differences in a positive light, (e) choose team members based on competencies, and (f)

conducting due diligence about local laws and regulations pertaining to human capital

(Browne et al., 2016).

Although Browne et al. (2016) made an important contribution to the field of

global team management, Browne et al. based their research on secondary sources to

support views on leadership skills, qualities, and competencies related to project

management. The information was derived from project management practice texts and

publications to determine effective communications practices for global project teams

(Browne et al., 2016). Further research might be necessary by conducting case studies or

other modes of data collection for enhanced credibility.

Connective leadership might be one of the most important skills that a leader of a

diverse work team used to improve employee goal commitment during an integration

stage following a cross-border M&A deal (Yan et al., 2016). Connective leaders could

use diverse and complex leadership behaviors to reduce dysfunctional conflicts in

mergers through collaboration and could reconcile the relationship between the acquirers

and acquired workers (Yan et al., 2016). The positive relationships between workers in

the workplace might be necessary for the leader to manage employee motivations(Jedin

& Saad, 2016). Leaders might be able to further mediate conflicts in tasks and processes

by creating pleasant relationships among the workers because the workers might

proactively synthesize different opinions and ideas about work tasks and improve

decision quality (Korovyakovskaya & Chong, 2016).

Benefits and Challenges of Cross-Border M&As

Once successfully integrated, the cross-border acquisition may be one of the most

efficient growing strategies for an organization to expand into the global market (M. Hu

& Ngo, 2015). Many business owners and researchers ignored challenges of today’s

intensified internationalization and cultural assimilation of an ethnically diverse

workforce involving various conflicts in the workplace, such as task, process, and

relationship conflicts that might cause poor post-M&A performance (Korovyakovskaya

& Chong, 2016). Rottig (2017) noted that, although organizational cultural differences

might be subject to creating conflicts and could negatively affect acquisition

performance, there were no significant relationships between national cultural differences

and acquisition performance. The business leader should consider preserving acquired

workers' national cultures as long as the leader could manage cross-cultural integrations

without generating conflicts in the workplace associated with national cultural differences

between the acquirer and the target (Risberg, 2003). In this section, I analyzed some

benefits and challenges of cross-cultural management in relation to cross-border M&As.

Benefits and motives of cross-border M&As. Some business leaders might ask

what unique advantages the leader would gain from cross-border M&As compared to

domestic M&As. Cross-border M&As accounted for over 80% of the world’s FDI

(Sharma, 2016). Some researchers conducted intensive literature reviews to answer the

question, What drives cross-border M&As as opposed to domestic M&As? One of the

most common answers was the fact that cross-border M&As would be a cheaper and a

quicker means to gain access to foreign markets (Sharma, 2016).

M. Hu and Ngo (2015) explored various motives for business leaders to conduct

cross-border M&As and the factors that might affect the returns of the acquirers. The

researchers found some fundamental motives to implement cross-border M&As: (a) entry

to the international market, (b) risk diversification, (c) overcoming adverse government

policy, (d) enhancing productivity, (e) increasing market power, and (f) market valuation.

Motivations for cross-border M&A might be different from country to country.

BanyAriffin, Hisham, and McGowan (2016) noted that the benefits of cross-border

M&As should arise from acquirer’s greater ability to exploit strategic advantages of

targets’ host countries, such as the abundance of natural resources, tax structure,

government regulations, technologies, trade agreements, correlations between countries’

economic cycles and even monopolistic market power. Motives to conduct cross-border

M&As should also include value and competitive advantage creation, improvement in

efficiency, market leadership, innovations, marketing and strategic motives, and

synergistic gains (Tripathi & Lamba, 2015). However, a large majority of past research

based on either document reviews or Likert-type scale questionnaire and might have left

some areas that other researcher could explore negative aspects of the cross-border

M&As through field works.

Positive spillovers. Positive spillover effects might become a valuable impact on

the innovation performance of a newly established firm after a cross-border M&A

(Muqiang et al., 2017). Some companies might acquire other companies in different

countries to increase productivity and technological spillover effects (M. Hu & Ngo,

2015). Scholars found that companies in a country with low technological backgrounds

tended to aim at achieving reverse spillover effects to enhance technological capabilities

from acquirers in the countries with advanced technologies (Lan, Yang, & Zhu, 2015).

Lan et al. (2015) stated Chinese firms were likely to create value by acquiring target firms

in developed countries. Acquirers in the emerging market having a strong absorptive

capacities might be able to enhance innovation performance through acquiring foreign

technologies, combining with localized knowledge, and developing unique products

aimed at selling to both home and global customers (Wu, Wang, Hong,

Piperopoulos, & Zhuo, 2016).

By acquiring firms in developed countries, leaders of multinationals in developing

countries could foster technology transfer, technological spillovers, and flows of

knowledge and best organizational practices from targets (UNCTAD, 2016). An acquired

target firm might also gain spillovers from the acquirer and would be more likely to

improve efficiency when the targets received better technology support from foreign

acquirers (Liang, 2017). Effects of spillovers and knowledge transfer might be more

significant when the recipient had a high absorptive capacity (Liang, 2017). Absorptive

capacity was an essential factor that an organization would need to possess so that the

organization could identify and assimilate relevant knowledge (Arnold, Benford, Canada,

& Sutton, 2015), and a lack of absorptive capacity might lead to an inability to adapt to

changing work environment and effectively apply strategic flexibility (Arnold et al.,

2015).

Knowledge transfer. Business leaders might seek opportunities for transferring

knowledge from cross-border M&As activities (Ranucci & Souder, 2015). Knowledge

transfer was addressed as part of the knowledge management process (Lepik & Krigul,

2016). Nuno et al. (2015) identified a trend that business leaders were gradually shifting

their M&A objectives from financial-focused strategies to knowledge-based approaches

from the organizational learning perspectives in recent years. Business leaders evolved

evaluation metrics for M&A outcomes from assessing post-M&A performance to seeking

an understanding of what might drive synergy creation through sharing knowledge during

the integration process (Nuno et al., 2015).

There was a growing interest among business leaders regarding the effect of

knowledge transfer between the acquirer and the target because the knowledge transfer

could occur only during the postacquisition integration phase (Ai & Tan, 2017).

Ahammad et al. (2016) investigated the factors that might impact on knowledge transfer

and the effects on cross-border acquisition performance. Knowledge transfer and

employee retention were some of the positive factors to improve cross-border acquisition

performance (Ahammad et al., 2016). The effective learning from foreign targets for

acquiring companies might become detrimental to performance, if the acquiring firm had

a low level of absorptive capacity (Ai & Tan, 2017). Because enhancing the firm's

competitive position in the market should be one of the most compelling objectives to

conduct cross-border M&As, knowledge transfer between the acquiring and the acquired

firms should lead to the creation of sustainable competitive advantages in the global

market (Ahammad et al., 2016; Ai & Tan, 2017).

Business leaders might also need to realize the value of cross-cultural tacit

knowledge transfer as a success factor for cross-border M&As, which could emerge

during the integration period as well (Nishinaka, Umemoto, & Kohda, 2015). The

knowledge management would be challenging when a firm undertook projects in

crosscultural settings where high-context cultures were involved (Nishinaka et al., 2015).

Nishinaka et al. emphasized the needs for business leaders to develop capabilities to

manage tacit knowledge transfers before they start managing acquired workers in

highcontext cultures.

Competitive advantages and innovation in the industry. Cross-border M&As

could be a significant strategy to develop competitive advantages in the global market

through innovations by gaining valuable technologies and capabilities that targets have

attained (M. Hu & Ngo, 2015; Tripathi & Lamba, 2015). According to Azar and

Drogendijk (2016), the cultural distance between the home and the host market might be

a positive factor for an acquiring firm to adopt innovations the target firm developed in its

market. The larger the cultural distance, the higher the degree of accepting innovations

developed in the host-country would be (Azar & Drogendijk, 2016). Business leaders

would wish to continue adopting innovations in response to uncertainties resulting from a

cultural distance to a foreign market, which could also positively impact the firm’s export

performance (Azar & Drogendijk, 2016). Korzilius, Bücker, and Beerlage (2017) noted

when different cultures existed in a workplace, the diversity of the workforce could

provide resourcefulness and unique perspectives comparing with a workplace with a

single culture. An individual’s experience could become more fertile when the individual

had access to external sources of knowledge for innovation and a diverse colleague

network (Bogers, Foss, & Lyngsie, 2018).

Business leaders might not be able to achieve innovations during the early stage of

postacquisition integration and might result in a negative performance in the short term

(Ma, Zhu, & Cai, 2016). The cross-cultural organizational differences could also

negatively influence knowledge transfers, particularly in research and development units

(Ghauri & Rosendo-Rios, 2016). Ma et al. (2016) implied a well-organized workplace

after culturally integrated diverse workers might significantly contribute to the outcome

of postacquisition performance. Moreover, leaders of acquiring organizations often

attempted to create a competitive advantage by seeking global talent from acquired

targets (Luo, 2016). Business leaders should understand how acquired talents could adapt

to a global mindset and to headquarters’ organizational cultures (Luo, 2016).

International market power. Gaining market power was another classic

motivation for an MNE to carry out cross-border M&As (Bany-Ariffin et al., 2016; M.

Hu & Ngo, 2015; Tripathi & Lamba, 2015). An MNE might plan to operate overseas to

gain access to a new market by taking over a target’s’ market share in its country and to

hold control of the market (M. Hu & Ngo, 2015). Many leaders of MNEs might choose a

cross-border M&A as an entry to a foreign market as opposed to greenfield investment if

the leaders aimed to quickly adapt to the local environment of the host country (Boateng,

Du, Wang, Wang, & Ahammad, 2017). The leaders of MNEs might prefer acquisition

when the organization had high bargaining power, knew the target market conditions, and

locally accepted products and brands (Boateng et al., 2017). Leaders of MNEs might also

favor cross-border M&As if they focused on short-term growth in the target market or

synergy creations through increased operational efficiency and market power

(BanyAriffin et al., 2016; Tripathi & Lamba, 2015).

Shareholder’s profit and costs of cross-border M&As. M&A would not only

be profitable in maximizing profits but would also be effective in enhancing shareholder

values because the earnings per share and dividend per share might follow an upward

trend in the post-merger period (Harvey, 2015). Leaders of acquiring firms would

evaluate the intangible values of the price paid for acquisitions. The cost to acquire a

target could reach 40% to 50% above the calculated amount of the current value

(Mazzariol & Thomas, 2016). However, the leader should recognize the intangible and

emotional aspects of the merger could influence the final price the acquiring firm would

pay (Mazzariol & Thomas, 2016).

Business leaders might generate a loss in the organization’s stock values if the

leaders failed to foresee institutional or regulation changes in the target market. Reddy,

Xie, and Huang (2016) found that the government officials’ erratic nature and ruling

political party intervention tended to have a damaging effect on success of cross-border

M&A deals. If the government has a strong control of the industry in a host country, an

acquiring firm might struggle with higher bid value of a listed target firm and the cash

payment as a result of the government interventions (Reddy et al., 2016). Leaders of

acquirers in the United States often engage in earnings management behaviors in

stockbased foreign acquisitions (Baik, Cho, Choi, & Kang, 2015). Bidders often

strengthened earnings management when targets existed in countries with higher

institutional differences, such as countries that had less freedom of the press, political

instability, corruption, and less government effectiveness (Baik et al., 2015). Regarding

cross-border M&As between developed and developing countries, the acquired firm’s

shareholders in emerging economies were likely to earn positive returns, whereas the

acquirer of the target in the emerging economies would not in the short period (Yuce,

2016).

Synergy creations. Leaders of acquiring firms often lacked strategic rationales

and had high expectations to achieve unrealistic synergies (Sinkovics et al., 2015).

Although realization of synergies might be a critical objective of a cross-border M&A,

business leaders could fail to create synergies during the integration process and could

not disseminate available know-how in the merged firms throughout the postmerger

phase (Osarenkhoe & Hyder, 2015). Cross-border acquisitions were more intricate than

domestic ones, particularly regarding the postacquisition integration processes (Sinkovics

et al., 2015). Osarenkhoe and Hyder (2015) advocated some critical factors leading to

integration success would include a leadership style that emphasized hands-on

management, visionary thinking, an involvement of entire staff, and open and honest

communications.

Fiorentino and Garzella (2015) also identified three critical pitfalls the business

leaders often faced when planning an M&A and building synergies. The pitfalls that

leaders might fall and fail to create synergies were a propensity to overestimate synergy

potential, the underestimation of difficulties in synergy realization, and lack of attention

to the realization of synergies (Fiorentino & Garzella, 2015). Sinkovics et al. (2015)

identified some success factors for synergy creation and enhancements in overall M&A

performance: (a) the acquirer and target firms work closely together to improve

marketing development by sharing and exchanging marketing resources, thus enhancing

the marketing integration process; (b) both the acquirer and the target firm successfully

diagnosed and selected several of their best marketing practices they employed in both

countries to expedite strategic goals; and (c) acquiring firms should take more time to

understand and build up social relationships with their target firms before any significant

progress can be made toward firm combination.

Challenges of postacquisition cross-border multicultural integration. Prior

researchers observed challenges for cross-border acquisition from two different

perspectives: cultural distance and institutional distance. Some researchers linked the

hurdles involving governments’ administrative, regulatory, cognitive, and normative

institutions to institutional distances between the acquirer and the target’s markets (Baik

& Park, 2015; Cezar & Escobar, 2015). Researchers using cultural distance lenses would

often examine barriers in human interactions in relation to different national cultures,

traits, languages, business practices, religions, human behaviors, mentalities, or beliefs

between the two countries belonging to the acquirer and the target as the challenges of

cross-border M&As (Baik et al., 2015; Bebenroth & Hemmert, 2015). Both variables

such as national culture and institutional structure were critical factors that could affect a

financial behavior of the firms after completing cross-border M&As (Baik et al., 2015).

Moreover, based on McKinsey’s 7S model, not only national cultures but also

organizational cultures could significantly affect the style of an organization (Dyer,

Godfrey, Jensen, & Bryce, 2016).

Although a large number of firms increasingly engaged in cross-border M&As

because the business owners could obtain a wide range of opportunities through

crossborder M&As, there was a common understanding among business leaders that

integration issues would be decisive and critical to their outcome (Bauer et al., 2015). The

estimated failure rates of M&As were between 40% and 60%, although some studies

showed the rates as high as 70% to 90% (Cui et al., 2016; Zaks, 2016). The average

failure rates of M&As had not changed over time (Bauer et al., 2015). To achieve the

initial goal of M&A and synergies, post-M&A integration would be a necessary process

although the integration might be a complex, hard to predict in detail, and hardly

plannable process (Bauer et al., 2015; Haspeslagh & Jemison, 1991).

Some researchers often blamed cultural differences for problems in multicultural

organizations (Hofstede, 2015). De Luque et al. (2017) found 94% of the researchers of

extant literature on cross-cultural strategic management overly emphasized the barriers

induced by cultural differences, such as difficulties, obstacles, and conflicts. Seventy-two

percent of the executives testified that little effort was traditionally focused on cultures

during the postmerger integration period (Hirsch, 2015). Although it was relatively

minor, some researchers poised various favorable dynamics and outcomes that stemmed

from national cultural differences (De Luque et al., 2017). Cross-border M&As could be

more successful if business leaders prioritized cultural factors early in the integration

processes and focused on transparent dialogues about cultures between acquirers and

targets (Hirsch, 2015).

Some researchers emphasized the importance of understanding human mentality

and behaviors of acquired workers. In a workplace, each employee has unique values,

symbols, statements, rules, education systems, political governance, family, and friends

that affect the development of the individual (Sprajc & Podbregar, 2016). Moilanen

(2016) studied how human emotions might affect the alignment of a management of an

organization and control system after a cross-border acquisition. The workers of the

acquiring firm tended to lead the operation of a newly created organization and identify

change processes for consolidations (Moilanen, 2016). Although acquiring firm workers

would be more rational in making decisions, the acquired workers would exhibit rather

emotional behaviors (Moilanen, 2016). To function effectively as an organization, the

acquiring firm workers should deal with soft issues such as culture and communications

(Moilanen, 2016; Sprajc & Podbregar, 2016).

In addition to the issues of human emotions, leaders of acquiring firms often face

challenges related to different business processes practiced in targets’ host countries (Y.

Chen, Werle, & Moser, 2016). Y. Chen et al. (2016) reiterated the importance of

relationship building associated with high LTO cultures after the researchers investigated

the success factors of cross-border postacquisition integration between two cases that a

Chinese company acquired a European company and a European company acquired a

Chinese company. China was a high LTO and high PD culture and had a unique decision

process that most Europeans did not practice (Y. Chen et al., 2016). Furthermore,

acquiring business leaders might find it rather challenging to align organizational cultures

or business practices with those of the targets in emerging economies if an acquiring firm

from a developed country already established brand image and specific corporate cultures

associated with the brand (Caiazza, 2016). To explore more cross-border M&A success

stories in a broad range of industries, Andriuskevicius and Ciegis (2017) recommended a

more holistic analysis involving extensive case studies and questionnaire.

Some scholars focused on the importance of understanding the workers’ mentality

in connection with national cultures to motivate the workers during the postacquisition

integration. Bertoldi, Giachino, Bernard, and Prudenza (2015) investigated the processes

of cross-border M&As by examining a merger of Fiat and Chrysler. Cross-border M&A

might be the most popular method of FDI (Mayer-Foulkes, 2015), so that numerous

automotive manufacturers in the world might consider because of its potentially valuable

synergies and knowledge transfers between the acquirer and the target as a result of

integrations (Ahammad et al., 2016; Tripathi & Lamba, 2015). Acquirers often aimed at

achieving synergies through acquisitions, such as cost reductions, economies of scale, or

technology transfers, although there are only a few cross-border M&As successful in

creating expected values and synergies (Bertoldi et al., 2015). A cross-border

postacquisition integration would be difficult if an acquiring firm ignored the differences

in mentality and cultures among diverse workers and how to motivate them (Bebenroth &

Hemmert, 2015; Bertoldi et al., 2015).

Conflicts in multicultural diverse team work. Researchers often recommended

that business leaders carefully manage cultural diversity in practice after completing

cross-border M&As when the desired outcome was creative thinking and innovation in

the global business development (Maranga & Sampayo, 2015). Leader’s cultural

intelligence might be an important predictor of conflict management styles (Gonçalves et

al., 2016). For multicultural management, Korovyakovskaya and Chong (2016) addressed

three types of conflicts among the diverse workers: task, process, and relationship. Task

conflict could emerge from differences in judgment or perspective and focused on

judgmental differences about how to achieve common objectives and disagreements

among team members regarding the team tasks that team members would share and

collaborate (Appelhoff, Mauer, Collewaert, & Brettel, 2016; Medina, 2016). Process

conflict referred to disagreements among team members on the way how they should

achieve the tasks and tended to cause a consistent, negative relationship on group

outcomes (Medina, 2016). Finally, the relationship conflict was dysfunction related to

emotional and personal incompatibilities or disputes that might be subject to anger,

frustration, suspicion, distrust, and hostility among team members (Medina, 2016). Task,

process, and relationship conflicts could also be a predictor of potential

miscommunications in culturally diverse work teams (Korovyakovskaya & Chong,

2015).

From an empirical study of conflicts in the multicultural workforce, researchers

found that task conflicts were positively related to perceived group performance in

culturally diverse work teams, whereas process conflicts were negatively related

(Korovyakovskaya & Chong, 2016). The presence of task conflict might be helpful in

enhancing team performance if the workers better understood task issues in the team

(Appelhoff et al., 2016)., Relationship conflicts, by contrast, could arise from

disharmony between the team members who display feelings of anger, hostility,

frustration, and distrust among team members (Medina, 2016). Process conflicts might

also lead to decreasing individuals’ effectiveness at connecting ideas from disparate

cultures (Maranga & Sampayo, 2015).

Task and process conflicts. Task conflict could emerge from disagreements

among team members regarding the team tasks the members shared and collaborated

(Medina, 2016). Bansal (2015) stated human integrations and task integration were

separate subjects for acquiring firms. The organizations where the leaders place higher

preference on human integration tended to secure highly committed employees (Bansal,

2015). If a leader prioritized task integration and ignored human integration, employees

would develop negative emotions with anger and insecurity in their newly merged

organization (Bansal, 2015).

Task conflict could enhance the team’s appropriate management of process

conflicts (Shaukat, Yousaf, & Sanders, 2017). Task conflicts could also mediate the

relationships between connective leaders and employee goal commitment (Yan et al.,

2016). Cross-border M&A integration leaders should pay more attention to managing

relationship conflicts rather than task-related conflicts to lessen tensions among the

workers and to achieve creating a harmony in culturally diverse workforce to improve

team performance (Korovyakovskaya & Chong, 2016).

Task conflicts might be helpful in enhancing team performance and firm

innovativeness (Camelo-Ordaz, García-Cruz, & Sousa-Ginel, 2015). Group harmony

could improve innovative performance of the team by reducing task conflict and

neutralizing any negative effect of task conflict (C. C. Chen, Ünal, Leung, & Xin, 2016).

Workers’ job engagement could be helpful in mediating between task conflict and

performance (Jungst & Blumberg, 2016). Moreover, task conflict among top management

team might be helpful to improve the performance of the firms (J. Chen et al., 2017).

Extant research demonstrated that process conflict had dysfunctional

consequences on team performance (Parayitam & Papenhausen, 2016). In an

internationally merged organization where workers from different cultures colocated with

diverse beliefs and different preferences for strategic goals, leaders might face challenges

in coordinating opinions during the decision-making process, which would further

propagate the seeds of relationship conflict within a team (N. Hu, Chen, Gu, Huang, &

Liu, 2017). Disagreements in the decision-making process might deter behavior to seek

agreement and could hamper team effectiveness (Parayitam & Papenhausen, 2016).

Furthermore, process conflict concerning the resources and role allocations could

increase relationship conflicts (Seo & Takashima, 2017). The more the process conflicts,

the less convenient for the members to agree on decisions, which willeventually lead to

failure in worker commitment (Parayitam & Papenhausen, 2016).

Relationship conflicts. Relationship conflict could create animosity, distract team

members, and hamper the decision-making process, causing the team members to feel

unwilling to collaborate (Medina, 2016). Relationship conflict might be a pervasive

problem of culturally diverse organizations and would often affect employees’ job

satisfaction and enthusiasm to cooperate with other members of the tems (Ayoko, 2016;

Hjerto & Kuvaas, 2017). The relationship conflict might be a full mediator between

political climate and employee performance associated with job burnout and turnover

intentions (Shaukat et al., 2017).

Relationship conflict could also mediate the effects of leader support and the

employee goal commitment as well (Yan et al., 2016). Leaders of multicultural

organizations should recognize that supervisor support could significantly reduce worker

stress and decrease emotional exhaustion to work with coworkers (Zhu et al., 2015).

Supervisor support would be an important element in mediating relationship conflicts

because there were significant relationships between supervisor support and reduced role

stressors, family functioning, and emotional exhaustion (Torresl, Alcántara, Rudolph, &

Viruell, 2016).

Cultural diversity, distance, and foreignness were typical causes that would

negatively impact on creating value for a multicultural organization because of potential

conflicts between the workers (De Luque et al., 2017). Cultural diversity might, however,

also be helpful in generating innovations and synergies (M. Hu & Ngo, 2015) if the

leader could engage in hands-on management, visionary thinking, the involvement of the

entire staff, and open and honest communications (Osarenkhoe & Hyder, 2015). The

relationship engagement was positively associated with an M&A performance (Jedin &

Saad, 2016). Leaders might be able to motivate the staff to perform their tasks at

maximum levels by maintaining favorable relationships with workers (Jedin & Saad,

2016).

Institutional distance focused analyses. When executing a business

diversification, the business leaders would not only face cultural challenges but might

also encounter hurdles related to institutional distances between the countries (Reddy et

al., 2016). With an increased institutional distance, the firm might incur more adaptation

costs, the costs of adapting the firm to the legal systems, political and governmental

framework, conditions of access to credit and regulations in the host country (Cezar &

Escobar, 2015). Institutional distances tended to impede a firm’s decision to invest in a

foreign country and would reduce the volume of investment (Cezar & Escobar, 2015).

Investors might look for countries that offer a stable and dynamic macroeconomic

framework, simple investment rules, and tax holidays (Reddy, 2016). Fewer investments

from international funds were associated with low levels of country transparency because

foreign investors might hesitate to invest in corrupt countries (Liu, Lu, & Ma, 2015).

Firms in developed economies might be able to adapt more easily to institutional

distances than the firms in developing economies (Cezar & Escobar, 2015). Bebenroth

and Hemmert (2015) found that an acquired firm would experience negative effects of

managerial distance on return on assets (ROA) after the acquisition. When an acquirer

originated in emerging market, the target tended to deliver a higher ROA and lower asset

growth than the firms acquired by the firms in developed countries (Bebenroth &

Hemmert, 2015).

MNEs might be able to reduce the costs in developing high-tech products by

outsourcing research and development (R&D) activities to firms where costs of

operations were low regarding labors, taxes, energy, or real estates (Reddy, 2016).

Regarding the issues related to labors in target countries, Alimov (2015) explored the

impacts of country-level employment protection regulations on foreign firms’ crossborder

M&A decisions and operations. Countries with relatively tight employment regulations

would be more attractive to foreign acquirers in the countries having relatively flexible

labor regulations when acquirers discovered targets at bargain prices, such as the sectors

with relatively high productivity and skill (Alimov, 2015). Business leaders might choose

to delay decisions to invest or even failed in investment if leaders encounter weak

financial infrastructure of the host country and erratic nature of government officials who

had strong intervention power (Reddy, 2016). A newly elected government that aimed at

attracting a higher inflow of investments from other developed and emerging markets

might often ease investment rules and might offer tax holidays

(Reddy, 2016).

Application of National Cultural Knowledge to Postmerger Integration Following

Cross-Border M&As

Firms of all levels including small-, medium-, and large-size firms have been

increasingly implementing cross-border M&As recently because the firms could gain a

wide range of opportunities from cross-border M&As (M. Hu & Ngo, 2015). There was a

common understanding that integration issues were decisive and critical to the outcome

of the M&As (Bauer et al., 2015). Despite increased efforts to study and the

disillusioning results reported, the failure rates of cross-border M&As have been

estimated as 70% to 90% (Cui et al., 2016; Zaks, 2016) that have not been changed over

time. Bauer et al. (2015) noted the worker integration would be a necessary process to

achieve initial goals of a cross-border M&A. Business leaders should plan strategies on

how to integrate acquired workers following the acquisition (Haspeslagh & Jemison,

1991).

Differences in national cultures between workers could cause significant impacts

on communications in the workplace, which might potentially generate a challenge for

the leader to manage diverse work teams (Caiazza, 2016). Some business leaders would

attempt to build the firm’s orientation toward a brand image already established in the

acquirer’s country of origin (Heinberg, Ozkaya, & Taube, 2016). Leaders might wish to

create a model of organizational culture which contained various individuals’ national

cultures (Caiazza, 2016). In their study of corporate communications and its association

with organizational cultures in Australia, Austria, Germany, Indonesia, and Switzerland,

Hoffmann et al. (2015) found there were no significant correlations between the

organizational cultures and the corporate communications priorities. The nation variables

and the institutional settings related to national cultures would be more conspicuous when

explaining the differences in corporate communications (Hoffmann et al., 2015).

Using an example of a Swedish company’s acquisition of a Korean company,

Hofstede (2015) illustrated one of the most unfortunate phenomena associated with an

abandoned system which the Korean firm had adopted before the acquisition. The

relatively flat structure and the performance-based promotion scheme introduced by the

Swedes might be attributed to national cultural differences regarding PD and IC

(Hofstede, 2015). In addition, a gap in LTO held for the abolition by the short-term

oriented Swedes of an in-house career development policy which the collectivistic,

longterm oriented Korean workers might prefer (Hofstede, 2015). As a result, Koreans

argued that social cohesion in the organization weakened and complained that Korean

workers lost pride in the company and worked only to make money (Hofstede, 2015).

Tusar, Znidarsic, and Miglic (2016) tested Hofstede’s (2001) five dimensions of

national cultural theory to check if the theory depicted the cultural distances accurately

between two different national cultures by examining Slovenian expatriates in Korea and

Korean expatriates working in Slovenia. Organizations operating international businesses

should establish subsidiaries in the host countries to build positive relationships with local

buyers and suppliers (Tusar et al., 2016). There were significant differences in national

cultures between Koreans and Slovenians in working environment and innovations, such

as the fear of expressing disagreement toward superiors, commitment to work, preference

of challenges, tendency to avoid conflicts and innovations (Tusar et al., 2016). Tusar et

al. confirmed working with people in different cultures would be subject to a certain

amount of adaptation to the different cultures for the leaders.

Application of national cultural knowledge to integration challenges related

to PD. According to Stoermer et al. (2016), people who belonged to a privileged group in

a high PD culture might insist on the status quo and exclusive advantages and were likely

to substantiate support on discrimination of low status groups because of the strong

preference to maintain a social hierarchy. To foster the establishment of the harmoniously

integrated work environment, it might be ideal that both acquirer and target had low PD

cultures in common because the effects of discrimination based upon status might be less

pronounced in low PD cultures and the need for equality might provide a favorable

environment for increasing diversity and inclusion management practices (Stoermer et al.,

2016). If an organization in a low PD country entered a high PD country, the organization

would consider a possibility that the workers or managers of high PD country might

cause unexpected ethical issues (Okpara, 2014). High PD cultures were negatively related

to immoral values, rules, self-interests, and personal attributes (Okpara, 2014). People in

a high PD culture might act more on behalf of supervisors rather than the social norm

(Hofstede, 1983, 2011).

Some researchers tested the relationship between the level of PD and

organization’s team collaboration, innovation, current, and future team performance. Rao

and Pearce (2016), conceptually deconstructed PD, and scales developed that reliably and

validly differentiated between the societal level values and workplace practices.

Employees in high PD cultures were more likely to identify themselves with the

organization whose cultural environments provided high PD (Park, 2016). Business

leaders in high PD cultures tended to apply authority and coerce other people in lower PD

cultures, even if the result might conflict with the interest of the organization’s

stakeholders in the low PD cultures (Y. Chang et al., 2015). Conversely, people in low

PD culture would exhibit better team collaboration, innovation, and performance and the

trust in fellow team members regardless of their subordinates’ societal PD cultural values

(Rao & Pearce, 2016).

Application of national cultural knowledge to integration challenges related

to UA. Hofstede’s concept of UA might be helpful in predicting miscommunications

between the members of a multicultural organization because the concept of UA might

provide hints to reduce uncertainties and enhance communication practices (Sinkovics et

al., 2015). Miscommunication might lead to task and process conflicts in culturally

diverse work groups at peer and supervisor levels (Korovyakovskaya & Chong, 2015).

Miscommunication and mistrust among diverse stakeholders could inhibit the effective

flow and exchange of information and knowledge across the organization (M. Hu & Ngo,

2017). Managers should take active steps to prevent miscommunication in culturally

diverse workgroups when supervising the multicultural workforces (Korovyakovskaya &

Chong, 2015).

Business leaders in high UA cultures might feel endangered by indefinite

situations (Hofstede, 2011) and tended to avoid dealing with organizations in a low UA

culture (Harrell, 2016). Conversely, people in a low UA culture would display a weak

relationship between knowledge self-efficacy and knowledge sharing intentions (Y.

Chang et al., 2015). According to Garcia et al. (2014), uncertainties in the daily

communication between the workers might not be a severe problem for organizations in

low UA cultures when collaborating. The Chinese and the U.S. people having similar

levels of UA were more likely to be able to deal with uncertainty and could accept

changes or conflicts allowing the team to practice business differently from existing rules

(Garcia et al., 2014). Comparing the verbal and written communication skills between the

German and the U.S. business students who also represented similar levels of UA

cultures, Luck and Swartz (2016) found German students learned that small mistakes

could be overcome in an international negotiation and gained in confidence, and the U.S.

students realized that limiting the use of idioms or humor might be necessary to avoid

miscommunications.

Application of national cultural differences to integration challenges related

to IC. Business leaders who supervised acquired workers following cross-border M&As

should adjust management policies concerning the different levels of IC of the team

memberrs (Y. Chang et al., 2015). In general, the Western cultures were more

individualistic than the Eastern cultures (Garcia et al., 2014; Hofstede, 1983, 2011). The

Chinese people, for example, had low IC or a collectivistic culture and tended to share

knowledge by way of reputations (Y. Chang et al., 2015). People in the United States had

a high IC level or an individualistic culture and were not necessarily motivated by

rewards to share knowledge (Y. Chang et al., 2015).

Trust and communication skills were critical factors to foster effective team

collaboration and performance of virtually connected diverse team members (Tran, Oh, &

Choi, 2016). When a leader from an individualistic culture managed a work team

consisted of people from collective cultures, the team performance might be low if a level

of trust among teammates were low (Tran et al., 2016). When managing a work team

comprised of people with individualistic cultures, a leader could expect a smooth

initiation of new team projects as opposed to managing a team in a collectivistic culture

(Tran et al., 2016). People in a collectivistic culture might avoid questioning in authority,

leading to the implementation of poor suggestions without a question (Maranga &

Sampayo, 2015).

Application of national cultural differences to integration challenges related

to MF. High levels of masculinity were associated with low disclosure environments,

competitive, admiration for strong, and aggressive manipulations (Hofstede, 2011; Khlif,

2016). Feminine cultures were more likely to create cooperative workplaces that might be

more comfortable for less competent workers with a sense of equality among workers

(Hofstede, 2011). Quintana-García and Benavides-Velasco (2016) found a negative and

significant relationship between gender diversity in executive management and successful

initial public offerings. The gender diversity in top management teams would be

beneficial to preintegration performance but not to postintegration performance following

cross-border M&As, and leaders from the acquirer could overcome the negative effects of

gender diversity in postintegration performance (Parola, Ellis, &

Golden, 2015).

Application of national cultural differences to integration challenges related

to LTO. There were positive associations between the difference in LTO levels of the

host and home countries (Peng & Beamish, 2014). People in high LTO cultures might

possess a dynamic, future-oriented mentality (Peng & Beamish, 2014, p. 424). When a

business leader in a high LTO culture managed a workforce in a low LTO culture, the

quality of the jobs would be poorer than expected because of the tendency to finish jobs

when they were done enough in low LTO cultures whereas the manager in high LTO

culture country expected the employees to work until the jobs were complete (Mantalay

& Chakpitak, 2015). When a business leader from a low LTO culture supervised workers

in a high LTO culture, the leader might perceive the workers were wasting a considerable

amount of time and costs without making profits in the short-term but might recognize

that the firm would gain more values in the long run (Peng & Beamish, 2014).

Peng and Beamish (2014) based their study only on Japan and could have a

limitation in a generalizability, even though Japan was one of the highest LTO cultures in

the world comparable to China, Korea, and Taiwan (see Hofstede, 2001). Observing from

a broader perspective, Rohlfer and Zhang (2016) investigated how the complexity of

cultural issues could pressurize the managers to change paradigms in international

business management. The rising pressure for paradigm changes took place through the

integration of the West-East dichotomy (Rohlfer & Zhang, 2016). In comparison with the

Western firms, some firms in high LTO cultures in the Eastern hemisphere historically

gained long-term value from the cross-border M&As particularly from the targets in the

developed countries (Lan et al., 2015).

Need for cultural consideration for integration and leader’s attitudes. For

previously separate organizations in different countries to merge and work together

toward the same goals, Haspeslagh and Jemison (1991) stated the leader of the merged

firm should focus on motivating multicultural workforce to align with strategies to create

value. Organizations existed in an increasingly dynamic and changing environment with

rapid technological advancement (Harrell, 2016). Highly developed economies were

taking advantage of low wage labors in other countries making cross-cultural

management an important skill for leaders of multinationals to operate businesses

(Harrell, 2016).

Although some researchers recognized postacquisition integration as a critical

stage of an M&A process, some researchers often conducted purely conceptual study

with less empirical support making the study less generalizable and insufficient in

applying to real-world business (Angwin & Meadows, 2015). Angwin and Meadows

(2015) criticized Haspeslagh and Jemison (1991) for not having provided a practical

example in the study. Cross-cultural management was a serious field for multinational

organizations, but the researchers often neglected to address cross-cultural management

issues sufficiently, diminished, and trivialized (Jemielniak, 2016).

Postacquisition cultural change should be a dyadic process, whereby the leader

would try to align acquired workers with the acquiring firm’s espoused or practiced

values, depending on which one prevails in the acquiring firm (Teerikangas & Irrmann,

2016). Managing cultural diversity should be an important aspect for an organization

because it involved harmonizing different values, beliefs, creeds and customs, and, in

essence, human identity (Lozano & Escrich, 2017). There has been an imbalance in the

reflection of the reality of cross-cultural contact in international business that hindered

understanding the processes and conditions to help organizations leverage the benefits of

cultural differences in a wide range of contexts (Stahl & Tung, 2015).

Canhilal et al. (2015) identified some success factors for expatriates such as the

cross-border M&A integration leaders to manage acquired workers in the host countries:

cross-cultural competencies, skills to motivate workers, emotional competencies, social

relational skills, knowedge of contextual and cultural differences, and organizational

recruitment and selection practices. Integration leaders might face various challenges in

host countries, such as the emotional difficulties connected to uncertainties, anxieties,

culture shock, and insolation (Kassar, Rouhana, & Lythreatis, 2015). Kassar et al. (2015)

suggested that the cross-cultural training would be imperative for a multicultural

integration leader to take before starting an international assignment in the host country.

Some researchers emphasized that business leaders of acquiring firms in

crossborder M&As should consider retaining some executives from acquired targets, who

might have vital expertise about workers of the targets. Zhu et al. (2015) stated that

providing targets with autonomy might be sensible in the ICT industry where autonomy

was more important in value creation. Directors holding more directorships in other

firms, good reputations, strong executive experience, and rich insights of the target firm

were significant assets to achieve postacquisition integration of the acquired workers(Xie

et al., 2016). Leaders of acquiring organizations should examine some key behavioral

characteristics of the former executives of the targets, such as satisfactory, selfish, or

starperforming (Bhimani, Ncube, & Sivabalan, 2015).

Transition

Section 1 was an introduction to the issues and challenges in the cultural

integrations after conducting the cross-border M&As. The section included a review of

the cross-border M&A activities of the multinationals around the world and explained

how the cultural intelligence might be significant for the leaders of the acquiring firms to

create desired values as a result of the cross-border acquisition when integrating acquired

workers into the merged organization. This section also included a conceptual framework

introducing the ideas of successful cultural integration grounded on Haspeslagh and

Jemison’s (1991) acquisition integration approach model and Hofstede’s (2001) five

dimensions of national cultures theory. Moreover, I presented a review of the literature

associated with cultural distances and various challenges to implementing cross-border

M&As.

In Section 2, I present a detailed explanation of the purpose of the study, the role

of the researcher, and participant selection. I elaborate on the research method, research

design, population and sampling, and ethical concerns. In Section 3, I present the

findings, application to professional practice, implications for social change,

recommendations for actions and for further research, reflections, and conclusions.

Section 2: The Project

During integrations, stakeholders need to consider how the cultural distance

between the acquirer and the target and how the two parties’ attitudes toward handling

cultural differences may affect the success of a cross-border M&A and the new

organization’s future growth (Caiazza & Volpe, 2015). I adopted a qualitative research

method because the qualitative approach allowed participants to describe their

experiences (see Venkatesh et al., 2016). I grounded my research using Hofstede’s (2001)

five dimensions of national cultural theory to select interview participants who were the

leaders of internationally merged organizations or organizations operating cross-border

businesses in which culturally distant, diverse employees were working together. The

results obtained through the interviews and data analysis may contribute to improving

business practitioners’ understanding of the challenges and solutions related to

multicultural integrations with diverse workforces after cross-border M&As.

Purpose Statement

The purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to explore strategies the

leaders of ICT companies use to integrate diverse workers following cross-border M&As.

The targeted population comprised leaders of ICT companies in North America, Europe,

and the Asia-Pacific region that had acquired overseas counterparts and kept operating

with the acquired foregin targets as part of the mergers for more than 5 years. The

implications for positive social change included the potential to promote spillovers of

skills, productivities, and knowledge between the societies where acquirers and targets of

internationally merged firms belong (see Liang, 2017), which might contribute to

enhancing both societies’ economy and quality of life. Improving individuals’

understanding of the importance of acknowledging different national cultures might also

be useful in mitigating potential unemployment rates as a result of reduced withdrawal

behaviors such as absenteeism or resignations (Stoermer et al., 2016).

Role of the Researcher

As the researcher in this study, my role involved developing interview questions,

identifying the target population and sample, selecting participants, organizing the

interview protocol, and conducting interviews (see Gaus, 2017; Yin, 2018). For a

crossnational multiple case study, cultural and linguistic differences place greater

importance on the researcher and the ability to interpret value and opinion through the

lens of cultural understanding (Martinus & Hedgcock, 2015). I was the primary

instrument to collect data from selected participants by conducting semistructured

interviews with open-ended questions. The rich nature of the data gathered through open-

ended interviews could provide a broader view and culturally unique opinions regarding

the participants’ societies (Martinus & Hedgcock, 2015). Data collection methods

included semistructured interviews, policy document analysis, and participant observation

(see Gaus, 2017) as well as nonparticipant observation of company websites, social

network services (i.e., Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.), and internal emails if consent

was provided from the organizations (see Madikizela-Madiya, 2017).

My experience as a multilateral trade commissioner with foreign diplomatic

offices of Canadian and Norwegian governments offering consulting services to ICT

industries in Canada, China, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan provided me with unique insights

into global business development activities in the North American, East Asian, and

European ICT markets. I have worked for more than 19 years with these governments

with responsibilities for fostering trades and FDIs among countries in the ICT sector and

have been involved in establishing memoranda of understanding, business alliances, and

cross-border M&As between organizations from different countries. I have gained a

deeper understanding of the importance of cross-cultural intelligence as a foundation for

deriving the benefits from globalizing organizations.

I complied with The Belmont Report (U.S. Department of Health and Human

Services, 1979) regarding the ethical principles guiding participants’ involvment in this

study. The Belmont Report identified the principles as respect for persons, beneficence,

and justice (O’Connor, 2013). Encouraging clarity and completeness in conversation

without influencing the participants’ answers to questions helps researchers achieve the

purpose of their study (Yin, 2018). Martinus and Hedgcock (2015) posited that the ethics

review process is central to research validity by protecting participants from the unethical

actions of researchers.

Due to my professional experience in multilateral trade promotion, I might have

had biases related to some cultures of participants from the organizations I accessed. To

ensure objectivity and to mitigate biases from influencing my perception, understanding,

analysis, and interpretation of the collected data, I followed an interview protocol and

constructed interview questions with careful consideration of research objectives (see

Appendices A and B). I ensured that the identity of participants was protected at all times

through compliance with confidentiality measures and through obtaining informed

consent from participants (see Madikizela-Madiya, 2017).

Participants

Qualitative researchers seek to identify participants who can share in-depth

knowledge of the phenomenon under scrutiny to increase the chances of gaining useful

data to answer the research questions (Annansingh & Howell, 2016). The research

question in the current qualitative multiple case study was the following: What strategies

do leaders of ICT companies use to integrate diverse workers after cross-border M&As?

To answer this research question, I recruited participants from multinational corporations

headquartered in North America, Europe, or Asia who were working as or who had ever

worked as expatriates in countries other than their countries of origin with an assignment

to integrate acquired workers after cross-border M&As. The participants were assumed to

be working in different time zones around the world.

I planned to select participants based on three criteria that designated them as

successful cross-cultural integration managers: (a) the leader has supervised a

multicultural work team for more than 5 years since the organization closed its

crossborder M&A deal or started international business operations under joint venture or

partnership; (b) the organization the participant belonged to has recorded positive returns

on investment (ROI) since the organization closed its M&A deal or started international

business operations under joint venture or partnership; and (c) the organizations involved

in the cross-border M&As, international partnerships, or joint ventures originated from

countries that were culturally distant based on Hofstede’s (2001) national cultural index.

Yin (2018) recommended a purposeful sampling technique to select participants who

would be qualified to address the study’s concept. The reason to check whether the leader

had conducted a multicultural team for more than 5 years was based on the idea that there

is no evidence of the superiority of faster integration over slow integration because the

integration process is complicated and is not predictable or plannable in detail (see Bauer

et al., 2015).

I further restricted my selection of participants to leaders who are expatriates

assigned from acquiring organizations living in the host countries where their acquired

organizations or partner organizations were located and who directly supervised local

workers in the host countries and other expatriates from the countries of origin.

Expatriates in the host countries might hold more experience in cross-cultural adjustment

and be facing complex challenges to work with foreign employees with different national

cultures on a daily basis than the leaders based in headquarters (Canhilal et al., 2015).

Using global database systems that contained data on combinations of enterprises traded

in public markets, such as the Thomson Reuters Eikon, CrunchBase, and PitchBook

database (see Andriuskevicius & Ciegis, 2017; Shetty & Sundaram, 2019), I identified

potential organizations where I could recruit interview participants who met the selection

criteria for this study. I used emails, messengers, or phone calls to reach out to

gatekeepers of the identified organizations or existing professional networks connected

via LinkedIn or Facebook that may have had business contacts with identified

organizations, to request help for facilitating access to participants. I contacted them to

discuss the need for their participation in the study via emails or letters that contained

relevant information about the study and the informed consent form.

The researcher needs to establish a working relationship with prospective

participants through email and telephone communications (Saunders et al., 2015). Emails

and telephone calls provided a means to clarify and confirm responses with the

participants in the study. The recipients were able to indicate their permission to

participate in the study by signing the informed consent forms. Depending on the process

and the method of accessing and acquiring signed informed consent forms, requests for

interviews might present pressures for participants to accept invitations and cooperate in

the research (Probst, 2016). The research design, personal relationships with participants,

and participants' potential misunderstandings of Hofstede's (2011) cultural dimension

concepts might be of concern in the research (Wallace & Sheldon, 2015). Pompeii (2015)

suggested that member checking might enhance the credibility of the research. After

completing all planned interviews, I sent participants an executive summary highlighting

the findings, recommendations, and conclusions of the study via email as a means of

conducting member checking.

Research Method and Design

Research Method

There are three research methods: qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods

(Venkatesh et al., 2016). For this study, I used the qualitative method to explore the

management challenges of integration of internationally acquired workers into the

homecountry workers following the cross-border M&As by conducting multiple

semistructured, in-depth interviews using open-ended questions. Qualitative researchers

use open-ended, evolving, and nondirectional questions to seek, discover, and investigate

a process or to describe experiences (Venkatesh et al., 2016) and are often concerned

about people and their social reality (Annansingh & Howell, 2016). In a semistructured

interview, the researcher prepares a list of questions or interview guide depending on the

purpose of data collection to direct the interview on a path consistent with the purpose of

the research (Abro, Khushid, & Aamir 2015).

In contrast to interviewing participants, quantitative researchers collect data using

closed-ended, descriptive, comparative, and specific questionnaires to test hypotheses

(Abro et al., 2015; Saunders et al., 2015; Venkatesh et al., 2016). Although quantitative

approaches may be effective for validating theories by using statistical measures, a

quantitative method may not be useful if the researcher does not intend to study

relationships between variables but rather aims to explore human experiences and

knowledge developed through the experience (Annansingh & Howell, 2016). A

qualitative interview methodology might be more useful for gathering rich data to analyze

the best business practices (Fusch & Ness, 2015).

Some researchers choose to conduct mixed-methods studies to develop novel

theoretical perspectives by combining the strengths of quantitative and qualitative

methods (Venkatesh et al., 2016). Researchers use mixed methods to promote greater

understanding of findings because quantitative data could empirically demonstrate the

soundness of the hypotheses the researcher developed, and the researcher can explain the

results by using the qualitative method (Annansingh & Howell, 2016). Gobo (2016)

noted, however, that there may be inconsistencies between the quantitative and

qualitative findings because each method has a performative intent, which could conflict

with the other. Combining both methods might also require a remarkable investment of

time and resources to complete the study (Gobo, 2016).

To explain the challenges related to multicultural management and to explore

strategies of cross-border M&As integrations, I would not be testing hypotheses, which

was part of a quantitative study or the quantitative aspect of a mixed-methods study. The

qualitative method was more appropriate to conduct this study because I investigated

human behaviors influenced by national cultures to explore strategies that leaders of

internationally merged organizations used to handle conflicts and cultural clashes among

diverse employees with different national cultures as a result of ineffective integrations

following cross-border M&As. Given the limitations of quantitative and mixed methods,

I concluded that a qualitative approach would be the best for this study because of the

need to capture participants’ cross-cultural worker integration experiences. With the

qualitative method, I aimed to understand the meanings that participants ascribed to

phenomena because the qualitative method provides opportunities for the researcher to

establish trust with participants and access meanings and in-depth understanding (see

Saunders et al., 2015).

Research Design

Researchers using a case study design should construct a meticulous design before

data collection to enable pattern identification during data analysis (Yazan, 2015). I

considered the multiple case study design appropriate for this study because the design

would enable me to collect data from multiple sources to capture the case under study in

its complexity and entirety (see Yazan, 2015). Case study methodology is also used to

simplify complex issues and objects, and researchers can contribute to findings from

other researchers (Annansingh & Howell, 2016).

Annansingh and Howell (2016) noted that a single case study design could be

appropriate for small and medium enterprises. However, I concluded that it would not be

suitable for studying challenges related to cross-border acquisitions and integration

hurdles. Action research combines research and practical action in which the researcher

joins with participants to improve practice and build theory (Nielsen, 2016). I did not plan

to participate in organizations’ postacquisition integration processes; therefore, the action

research design was not suitable. Ethnographic research was not appropriate either

because the design is used to examine the shared beliefs and behaviors of a cultural group

in a natural setting and is known for lengthy timelines to complete a study as well as

multiple data collection methods used (see Fusch & Ness, 2015). The narrative inquiry

design was not suitable because this design involves asking the participant to “tell his or

her story” (Morse, 2015, p. 1218) in response to a general question without interruption

in an unstructured manner.

Fusch and Ness (2015) suggested that one should choose the sample size that the

researcher could reach data saturation. Qualitative researchers use the concept of

theoretical saturation in designing qualitative study to find a cut-off point to decide

whether the researcher has enough data to derive a set of research descriptors to base

conclusions (Boddy, 2016; Rowlands, Waddell, & McKenna, 2015). Determination of

sample size was contextual and dependent upon the scientific paradigm under which the

researcher investigates the phenomenon in question (Boddy, 2016). The researcher

achieves data saturation when one has enough information to replicate the study and

observes no new information or themes in the data from additional interviews or cases

(Boddy, 2016; Fusch & Ness, 2015). To enhance the generalizability and transferability

of the study assuring data saturation, I continued interviewing until no new data emerged.

Population and Sampling

The goal of this study was to interview business leaders who belonged to the

selected organizations and had implemented cross-border acquisitions, international

business partnerships, or joint ventures and integrated the local foreign employees into

the participants’ organization workers in the ICT sector in North America. A total of

1,176 organizations in the world’s ICT sector including electrical and electronic

equipment producers and ICT services conducted cross-border M&As spending roughly

$50 billion during 2015 (UNCTAD, 2016). Sixty percent to 80% of the deals ultimately

failed (Jedin & Saad, 2016; Zaks, 2016), and 40% to 60% of acquirers divested their

acquired targets to other competitors (Cui et al., 2016; UNCTAD, 2016). Jedin and Saad

(2016) noted that nearly 50% to 70% of M&As failed to create value for the acquiring

firms’ shareholders. The cross-border M&As have been increased at a rate of 14.6%

annually in the United States (Mayer-Foulkes, 2015); hence, there is a growing concern

that the U.S. ICT companies are losing without building competitive advantages through

cross-border M&A activities.

To select organizations and participants of the study, I established three criteria:

(a) the organization the participant belongs to has kept recording positive ROIs since the

organization initially closed its M&A deal or started international business operations

under joint venture or partnership, (b) the leader has supervised a multicultural team for

more than 5 years to date since the organization initially closed its M&A deal or started

international business operations under joint venture or partnership, and (c) the

organizations involved in the cross-border M&As, international partnerships, or the joint

ventures originated from the countries that were culturally distant based on Hofstede’s

(2001) national cultural indices. Additional criteria for the organization included other

commercial success based on particular objectives of the cross-border acquisition such as

the gaining access to foreign market and increase in the market share, obtaining

technologies from acquired targets to develop competitive advantages, or creating

synergies through spillovers for enhanced productivities as a result of the cross-cultural

M&As. Many business leaders try to compete for market shares in the international

market (Harvey, 2015). Global business leaders expect to expand, diversify, and gain

opportunities to enter new markets through cross-border M&As and seek more

purchasing power in the target market (Bany-Ariffin et al., 2016). Due to limited size and

growth potential of the domestic market, an organization might wish to access new

market abroad. Acquiring an established company in the country of interest could

augment the firm’s values and profits (M. Hu & Ngo, 2015). Expanding the market share

of the acquired organization in the host country could be a significant criterion to select

participants in this study.

Positive spillovers were a valuable impact on the innovation performance of a

firm created after a cross-border M&A (Muqiang et al., 2017). Spillovers from targets

could be one of the most typical motivations for an acquirer to consider cross-border

M&As (Liang, 2017). The acquirer could synergize as a result of spillovers from the

target (M. Hu & Ngo, 2015). Positive profit growth due to improved product quality and

the operational productivity after implementing cross-border acquisitions might be an

additional criterion to judge whether the company was successful in the cross-border

postacquisition integration.

I employed purposeful and snowball sampling to identify leaders of organizations

that have acquired targets in other countries and integrated acquired workers successfully.

Unlike random sampling method, which might be more suitable for generalizable

findings, a qualitative researcher would use a purposeful sampling method to discover,

understand, and gain insights into specific cases that one could learn a great deal about

the issues of importance to the purpose of the inquiry (Cibangu et al., 2017). Sampling

strategies for qualitative methods would be less explicit and often less evident (Palinkas

et al., 2015). Among various techniques used in purposeful sampling, I used criterion-i

sampling method to identify and access individuals. Researchers would use criterion-i

sampling method by assuming that candidates would meet the criteria of the study and

possess knowledge and experience with the phenomenon of interest (Palinkas et al.,

2015).

Once the researcher conducted an interview, the researcher could use snowball

method to find other participants by asking the interviewee to reroute the invitation to

business contacts who held the experience and the backgrounds that should meet the

criteria of the study (Annink, 2017; Bagley, Abubaker, & Sawyerr, 2018; Marshall &

Rossman, 2016). Some researchers cautioned that the snowball method might cause bias

in the sample because respondents were likely to identify people who were similar to

themselves (Saunders et al., 2016). The snowball method still allowed the researcher to

enhance the variation in the sample by locating additional prospects not revealed in other

sources and was an established sampling methodology in social research (Annink, 2017;

Bagley et al., 2018).

I selected cases of cross-border M&As comprised of various pairs of acquirers

and targets that exhibited great cultural distances based on Hofstede’s (2001) national

cultural dimensions theory. For each of the 5 dimensions, including PD, UA, IC, MF, and

LTO, acquirers which appeared to be distant from targets' cutures were chosen for

interviews. Collecting data from multiple participants until no new data were obtained

might provide detailed, generalized information (Boddy, 2016; Palinkas et al., 2015) to

achieve a theoretical saturation where further replicable intelligence can be found by

adding more cases (Boddy, 2016; Fusch & Ness, 2015; Sato, 2016).

Ethical Research

In this study, I complied with ethical research guidelines and standards outlined in

the Walden IRB informed consent form which I distributed to each participant of the

study. Informed consent was an integral process to conduct this study that involved

human subjects, including informing the potential participant of the procedures how the

researcher intended to obtain data and enabled the participant to decide to participate in

the study voluntarily, potential risks, benefits, confidentiality, and alternatives to the

research, and then obtaining documentation of permission to proceed (Ferreira, Ferreira,

& Buttell, 2015). I sent the informed consent form to each participant by email with an

outline of the study and clarification of the planned use of the information obtained from

the participant. Participants also had a right to withdraw from the study at any time (see

Nelson, 2016), and the researcher provided the contact information before conducting the

interview.

The participant could contact me via email to inform of one’s decision to

withdraw from the study before the completion of the member checking process. If a

participant decided to withdraw, I would have erased all collected data associated with

the withdrawn participant and interviewed additional participants until data saturation

was achieved. The informed consent form also contained a clause that there were no

incentives offered to the participant for participating in this study. Offering gifts or

souvenirs to participants might lead participants to provide false information in return for

the monetary gains and might also be considered an offense or insulting depending on the

local culture or norm of the country where the participant resided (Kasim & Al-Gahuri,

2015). For the participant to participate in the study, I asked the participant to explicitly

agree to the interview by replying the email with a clause I consent.

The researcher safeguards their participants from any harm during the research

process, and thus the identity of individuals needs to be protected at all times through

compliance with confidentiality measures (Madikizela-Madiya, 2017). Under the

informed consent, although the researcher knew the identity of the participants and could

link them back to their responses, the researcher must protect their privacy by using codes

rather than names to link subjects back to their responses (Ferreira et al., 2015). To

maintain confidentiality, I assigned alphanumeric codes to all participants and companies

of the study and protected data and documents by storing all files in a single locked filing

cabinet. For electronic data, I stored all files in a password-protected folder on a computer

to which I only had access, and then I would destroy all files 5 years after the date of the

approval of this study. Walden University’s IRB approval number for this study is 05-16-

19-0666517 and the approval expires on May 15, 2020.

Martinus and Hedgcock (2015) suggested that the interview process and validity

of research findings were complicated when the researcher dealt with multiple nations

with different cultures and business practices. To gain access to professional elites who

are exclusive members of a specific organization, the researcher may have to rely on a

local ‘inside’ contact (Martinus & Hedgcock, 2015). The researcher should develop

rapport and establish trust with the gatekeepers of organizations in other countries to gain

access to organizational members (Saunders et al., 2015). To build trust with gatekeepers,

I paid attention to adhere to confidentiality. The consent forms the participants signed

included a confidentiality assurance, voluntary permission to participate in the study, and

the option to leave the study at any time. I would share with the participants a summary

of the findings once the study is published. Sharing the findings back with the community

would be important because participants might feel abused, disillusioned, or offended

after collaborated in the study if only the researcher could control the study (Kasim & Al-

Gahuri, 2015).

Data Collection Instruments

The researcher was the key instrument to observe participants in the qualitative

data collection process (Nelson, 2016). I employed qualitative interviews as the primary

data collection method and served as the primary instrument to collect data due to the

nature of this study. For deep understanding of the work environment and the

participants’ experience, researchers usually apply a set of data instruments to collect

data, such as interviews, observations, and document analysis (Gaus, 2017). The

researcher could collect both contextual and experiential data through interviews,

observations, and document analyses in the same study (Farooq & de Villiers, 2017).

The following research question was the basis for the interview questions: What

strategies do leaders of ICT companies use to integrate diverse workers after crossborder

M&As? Using open-ended questions (see Appendix A), I conducted a qualitative

exploratory multiple case study through semistructured in-depth interviews in person and

via video call with multiple business leaders of ICT companies in various countries who

had integrated diverse workforces after cross-border post-M&As. Skype was utilized to

achieve interviews with participants who were not available to conduct face-to-face

interviews for geographical reasons that the researcher might need to invest tremendous

time and costs for travel to accomplish data collections. Telephone and Skype were

reliable, sound data collection instruments and would be sufficient for an exploratory

study (see Bowden & Galindo-Gonzalez, 2015; Farooq & de Villiers, 2017). I also audio

recorded the responses as the second data collection instrument.

The qualitative researcher uses open-ended questions because unstructured

questions would be useful to discover aspects of a phenomenon that might not be

captured by close-ended questions (VanScoy & Evenstad, 2015). Researchers could

collect data during semistructured interviews in which participants were encouraged to

speak freely (VanScoy & Evenstad, 2015). Open-ended questions also provided

interviewees with the freedom to construct their own meaning of the phenomena forged

through discussions and interactions with other individuals within the organization

(Annansingh & Howell, 2016). I used open-ended questions in a semistructured interview

format (see Appendix A) to gather insights into the participant’s experience..

Data gathering is influenced by the researcher’s communication skills, training for

a specific case study, and the development of a protocol for the interview (Yazan, 2015).

To achieve reliability and validity for the study, I have crafted a data gathering protocol

by creating a standardized procedure of the data collection processes because the protocol

allowed to determine the aim of the interview and anticipate the problems that might arise

during the data collection process (see Larrinaga, 2017). With an interview protocol, the

researcher could check with the original purpose of the interview at any time and reduce

threats and create rapport with participants (Yin, 2018). I used interview protocols (see

Appendix B) to maintain consistency and enhance the rigor of the study during the data

collection process.

Researchers should not rely on the participants’ perceptions and their responses as

true evidence in supporting the study findings but should combine multiple secondary

instruments to strengthen the validity of the data (Gaus, 2017). I used participant

observation and organizational documents about the strategies to structure organizations

as the secondary sources for a triangulation. I employed member checking in addition to

obtaining secondary data for triangulation (see Morse, 2015).

Member checking refers to providing the participant with a summary of the

researcher’s interpretations of the participant’s responses during interviews to obtain

additional information (Abuaziz, 2018; Morse, 2015). With the member checking,

researchers could also gain confirmations, increase credence in the interpretation, and

demonstrate the commonality of an assertion (Yazan, 2015). Failing to reach data

saturation would create a negative impact on the validity of the results of this study (see

Fusch & Ness, 2015). Using more than one data collection instrument, the researcher

might be able to enhance the reliability of a case study because there is no one-size-fitsall

method to achieve data saturation (Fusch & Ness, 2015).

Data Collection Technique

I selected a qualitative multiple case study design for this study and collected data

either in person or via video call. Most researchers conduct one of three types of

interviews: unstructured, structured, and semistructured (Abro, Khurshid, & Aamir,

2015). In an unstructured interview, the researcher may encourage participants to speak

on their terms and to analyze the results accordingly (Cairney & St Denny, 2015).

Unstructured interviews may be subject to the bias of the interviewer than the other two

types of interviews and may influence on the interpretation of the data collection (Abro et

al., 2015).

Some researchers use structured or semistructured interviews to collect data from

each respondent, and the researcher prepares the list of questions or interview guide so

that the researcher can direct the interview on a path consistent with the purpose of the

research (Abro et al., 2015). I conducted semistructured interviews using open-ended

questions (see Appendix A) for the participants to answer. I explored strategies that the

leaders of ICT companies used to integrate diverse workers following cross-border

M&As. In semistructured interviews, the researcher can conduct a free-flowing style of

interview without the concerns of moving too far from the desired topic (Annansingh &

Howell, 2016).

The researcher may face challenges in finding the time and the venue to conduct a

face-to-face interview (Bowden & Galindo-Gonzalez, 2015). In addition to face-to-face

interviews, researchers can carry out qualitative interviews using the telephone or the

video call (Bowden & Galindo-Gonzalez, 2015; Farooq & de Villiers, 2017). De Felice

and Janesick (2015) noted that Skype enabled the researcher to virtually conduct

interviews similar to a face-to-face meeting by using various functions such as video,

audio, chat, and numerous add-ons for recording and editing capabilities. To facilitate

transferability of account, Cavalcanti (2017) suggested that a qualitative researcher

collect and record as much data as possible from different collection modes, identify the

types of data collected, and examine the detailed processes of data collection. I utilized

different modes to collect and record data depending on the participant’s availability,

skills to use digital devices, and other experiences.

I developed interview schedules concerning the time and process required to

access participants, conducted interviews, and analyzed the data (see Appendix C).

During the interview, the participant might spend time to reflect on the questions to

provide thoughtful answers, and the researcher needed to interpret data before asking

follow-up questions (Bowden & Galindo-Gonzalez, 2015). If the interview participants

were experienced and comfortable using the virtual communications as opposed to

faceto-face mode, Farooq and de Villiers (2017) suggested that the researcher should

consider conducting virtual interviews.

Through verbal interviews such as face-to-face, Skype, or telephone interviews,

participants were likely to share more stories, potentially including additional data than

doing via email, even though these additional data may not always be relevant to the

interview questions (see Bowden & Galindo-Gonzalez, 2015). Data collected online via

text such as email or chat may be more succinct than data collected verbally (Bowden &

Galindo-Gonzalez, 2015). Marshall and Rossman (2016) advised that the researcher

should question whether the data collected from the text-based discussions were as rich as

in-person interviews or what intuitive inferences might be lost when the data were

gathered without actually seeing, sensing, or interacting directly with the participant.

Skype had some powerful tools for completing the interviews, including the audio, video,

and chat capabilities (De Felice & Janesick, 2015). Bowden and Galindo-Gonzalez

suggested that the researcher should establish rapport with participants, ask appropriate

questions, listen actively to participants, and close the interview appropriately.

During the verbal interview, I reiterated the purpose of the study as necessary and

audio recorded the conversation using Audacity (Version 2.1.3), a computer application

which works with Macintosh computer to record sounds through a built-in input device. I

also proposed exchanging emails at the later time to follow up the data I gathered from

the participants’ responses in the first interviews. At the end of each interview, I asked

whether the participant had further information he or she could to share. Morse (2015)

suggested that participants should be invited to the member checking to ensure accuracy

and improve the validity of the study. I sent a summary of my interpretations to the

participants for review and comments once the initial analysis was completed,.

In addition to in-depth interviews, I also expanded data collected from the

interview with company data or archival documents such as corporate magazines,

newsletters, websites, and SNS pages. Analyzing documents was a useful technique for

the researcher to perform triangulation (Yin, 2018). Internal organizational documents of

multinationals were difficult to obtain due to confidentiality, but these documents might

often provide additional insights relating to the successful management of a multicultural

workforce because these documents could provide an additional layer of data that were

likely to help build an understanding of the phenomena under investigation (Farooq & de

Villiers, 2017). Combining multiple sources of evidence or different methods to gather

evidence could enhance the validity of the data and credibility of the results of the study

(Larrinaga, 2017). I investigated company documents, such as business magazines, home

pages, and SNS sites.

Data Organization Technique

Qualitative researchers might audio record data during the interview to assist in

capturing and editing data electronically (Bowden & Galindo-Gonzalez, 2015). I used

NVivo, a computer-assisted qualitative statistical program, Microsoft Excel, a

spreadsheet application, and Audacity, a program which works with Macintosh

computers to record sounds through a built-in input device, to manage and organize data

to edit and analyzed raw data. Using NVivo, I transcribed the interview data and analyzed

themes and codes. The use of NVivo provided clear, concise, and well-formatted data

useful to document coding procedures into a logical output (see Nelson, 2016).

Almarri and Abuhijleh (2017) noted that the researcher could use NVivo software

to identifythemes by analyzing non-numerical, unstructured data and categorizing them.

Through thematic analysis, the researcher could also detect recurring codes related to the

research topic and could store data according to various criteria, such as context, theme,

and time, and could be retrieved, searched, grouped, modeled, and classified (Almarri &

Abuhijleh, 2017). After completing the interviews and document reviews, the data were

organized and stored in NVivo. I placed all information and data in a primary folder titled

Walden Research Data.

To maintain confidentiality and to protect participants’ data, I assigned

alphanumeric codes to all participants and companies of the study and protected data and

documents by storing all files in a single locked filing cabinet. For electronic data, I

stored all files in a password-protected folder on a computer, to which I only had access.,

I would destroy all raw files 5 years after the publication of this study.

Data Analysis

In this qualitative multiple case study, I used triangulation with various data

sources. The researcher perform triangulation by using different types of data, views,

concepts, or theories to ensure the results are trustworthy and reliable to enhance validity,

reliability, and accuracy of the study results (Annansingh & Howell, 2016; Morse, 2015).

There are four types of triangulation: investigator triangulation, theoretical triangulation,

data source triangulation, and methodological triangulation (Gaus, 2017). I used

methodological triangulation. The researcher can study a single phenomenon for more

indepth analysis by using multiple data collection methods through methodological

triangulation (Annansingh & Howell, 2016; Fusch & Ness, 2015). The researcher could

improve the reliability of the data analysis by developing themes from multiple lines of

evidence, including field notes and complementary sources of information from

participant observation, interview responses, and organizational document reviews

(Larrinaga, 2017). Morse (2015) stated that the results should theoretically be reliable if

the researcher obtained the same results after conducting two methods to study the

phenomenon,. With multiple approaches to a single phenomenon, methodological

triangulation could help the researcher validate findings and explain or eliminate some

unessential information (Annansingh & Howell, 2016).

As part of the methodological triangulation, I performed member checking and

reviewed company documents to gain necessary confirmation to increase confidence in

interpretation and demonstrate the commonality of statements (see Pompeii, 2015; Yazan,

2015). Member checking is a process where the researcher provides the participants with

interpretations of their responses to confirm or correct the data and to obtain additional

information (Morse, 2015). Once I completed an initial analysis, I emailed my

interpretations to each participant for review and commentary to assure that the results

were accurate and reflecting their experiences. Combining methodological triangulation

and member checking, I aimed to ensure the data and analysis were comprehensive and

thorough exploration of the phenomenon under study.

Yin (2018) suggested that a qualitative researcher should step through five phases

to analyze the data: (a) compiling, (b) disassembling, (c) reassembling, (d) interpreting,

and (e) concluding the data collected from multiple participants to generate empirically

based findings (Yazan, 2015). Through the five steps, the researcher may discover

patterns, insights, or concepts by manipulating or juxtaposing the data collected from

different participants when analyzing data (Yin, 2018). The researcher may use coding as

the primary analytic technique (Almarri & Abuhijleh, 2017). Annansingh and Howell

(2016) advised the researcher should include names, significant issues, or categories

found in the interview scripts that might be pertinent to the research question. The

process of coding into categories could help distinguish specific patterns from each

participant’s experiences and would be the first step in processes of conceptualization,

synthesis, and abstraction (Morse, 2015). I transcribed the audio recordings of each

interview and stored data in computer productivity tools such as Microsoft Word and

Microsoft Excel. Using computer software was useful to identify and analyze common

themes that have emerged during the interview process (see De Felice & Janesick, 2015;

Nelson, 2016).

I also used a qualitative data analysis software (QDAS) to assist in coding and

discovering themes. NVivo was a QDAS that researchers used to deposit electronically

collected data for easier coding and identification of themes according to various criteria

such as context, theme, and time (Almarri & Abuhijleh, 2017; Martinus & Hedgcock,

2015; Nelson, 2016). Farooq and de Villiers (2017) suggested that the analysis of the data

should include checking for the commonalities between participant statements and the

conceptual framework grounded in the study. After completing coding and theme

identifications, I reviewed the collected data through the lens of the conceptual

framework to analyze the themes to find similarities, commonalities, and patterns arising

from the collected data. Similarities, differences, commonalities, and patterns in

identified themes were helpful in a more diverse analytical scrutiny of the study

(Annansingh & Howell, 2016).

Reliability and Validity

The reliability and validity are criteria used to judge the soundness of a qualitative

study (Marshall & Rossman, 2016). In qualitative studies, the researcher should assess

the reliability and validity of the results and conclusion because the researcher is likely to

encounter various conditions that may influence the progress of a case study and may

exist outside the researcher’s control making it challenging for the researcher to advance

the study as designed (Larrinaga, 2017). Abro et al. (2015) suggested the triangulation

using multiple methodologies and data sources could make research findings more valid

and reliable. In this section, I illustrated how I established the reliability and validity of

the study.

Reliability

A qualitative researcher can associate the reliability of the research with the notion

of replicability or the consistency of research findings (Gaus, 2017). Yin (2018) stated

that the goal to enhance the reliability was to minimize the errors and biases in a study.

The study might be reliable if the researcher could obtain the same results when

conducting the research using the same procedure (Sato, 2016). Larrinaga (2017)

suggested that maintaining the chain of evidence of the findings could enable other

researchers to reconstruct the case and make the research more reliable. The researcher

can support the findings to improve its reliability by conducting triangulations or

examining a single phenomenon by investigating multiple data sources to attain data

saturation (Abro et al., 2015; Fusch & Ness, 2015). The researcher may be able to

confirm that the data collected is not due to specific circumstances or chance

(Annansingh & Howell, 2016).

I used triangulation to explore the replicability of the study findings and to

enhance the reliability of the study. The researcher could employ data source

triangulation by using a variety of data sources to determine whether the case the

researcher investigated might be consistent at all times (Annansingh & Howell, 2016;

Marshall & Rossman, 2016; Morse, 2015). The researcher could explore different levels

and perspectives of the same phenomenon through triangulation (Fusch & Ness, 2015).

By comparing the data with different types of evidence on the same issue, the researcher

may be able to assess the trustworthiness of the findings and analyses of the data

collected (Annansingh & Howell, 2016).

Marshall and Rossman (2016) and Pompeii (2015) recommended other methods

to ensure the credibility and dependability of the study, such as member checking and

peer debriefing. Member checking refers to the sharing of data and interpretations with

interview participants (Marshall & Rossman, 2016; Morse, 2015). Peer debriefing refers

to the discussion of emergent findings with critical friends or knowledgeable research

colleagues to obtain reactions to the coding, case summaries, analytic memos written

during data analysis, and next-to-final drafts (Marshall & Rossman, 2016). I employed

member checking and peer debriefing methodologies to ensure that my interpretations

and analyses of the data collected were accurate and reliable.

Validity

Credibility. Credibility refers to the extent to which the results of qualitative

research are credible and believable (Venkatesh et al., 2016). The credibility of research

results might become low when the researcher ignored conflicting findings (Sato, 2016).

Qualitative researchers may be able to maximize the credibility by engaging in the study

for a prolonged period, sharing data and interpretations with participants through member

checking, triangulating through collecting data from multiple sources, and discussing

emergent findings with other researchers to ensure that analyses are accurate (Marshall &

Rossman, 2016). Venkatesh et al. (2016) suggested that during the interview the

researcher might help improve data credibility by asking every question in the prescribed

order per the interview protocol. I maintained the credibility of the study by member

checking, triangulation, peer debriefing, and the interview protocol.

Confirmability. Confirmability is parallel to objectivity (Gaus, 2017), for which

the researcher should demonstrate by confirming the analyses of the data and findings by

other people or other studies through member checking and peer debriefing (Marshall &

Rossman, 2016; Morse, 2015). The validity of a qualitative study can be achieved by

using a triangulation (Gaus, 2017). I used triangulation, member checking, and peer

debriefing to maintain the objectivity of the study. Pompeii (2015) illustrated that the

evaluation of the objectivity of research should involve reflection on the research, the

researcher’s interpretations, an assessment of the quality of the data, and how the

researcher’s personal biases might influence the assessment. The researcher might be able

to enhance the confirmability by addressing other criteria in concert, such as credibility,

transferability, and dependability (Pompeii, 2015).

Transferability. Transferability is parallel to generalizability and refers to the

degree to which the study’s findings are useful to explain other similar situations or

phenomena with similar research questions or questions of practice (Marshall &

Rossman, 2016; Venkatesh et al., 2016). The transferability of qualitative findings to

other populations is one of the main weaknesses of case studies (Larrinaga, 2017;

Marshall & Rossman, 2016). Venkatesh et al. (2016) suggested that the researcher should

pay attention to data collection strategies such as the longitudinal study to enable other

researchers to apply findings to their studies. Cavalcanti (2017) recommended prolonged

engagement, persistent observation, or collecting as much data as possible to enhance the

transferability of the study. The researcher should also avoid including a one-time

phenomenon which may hamper the validity and transferability of the study results

(Fusch & Ness, 2015). I adhered to the research design and interviewed business leaders

who had managed diverse workforces of the internationally merged organizations

successfully for more than 5 years since the mergers initially took place or started

international business operations under joint venture or partnership to enhance

transferability. I used Hofstede’s (2001) national cultural indices to find organizations

that have acquired foreign workers whose countries of origin were culturally distant from

the acquirers’ countries of origin.

Data saturation. I ensured data saturation within the interview responses,

participant observation, and document analysis. Data saturation refers to the point at

which the researcher has enough information to replicate the study and observes no new

information or themes in the data from additional interviews or cases (Fusch & Ness,

2015; Sato, 2016). Qualitative researchers use open-ended questions during in-depth

interviews and member checking to reach data saturation (Boddy, 2016). Teerikangas and

Irrmann (2016) suggested that the researcher should perform a cross-case analysis when

the researcher judged that little further insight could be gained from further data

gathering. I used methodological triangulation of the data such as in-depth semistructured

interviews, participant observation, and document analysis of publicly available data

sources such as company websites, SNS pages, and media articles, and performed a

cross-case analysis to find out similarities and differences between each identified theme

in the dataset.

Transition and Summary

In Section 2, I elaborated the research procedures I planned to conduct for the

study regarding the role of the researcher, participants, research method and design,

population and sampling, and ethical considerations, data collection techniques, data

analysis procedures, and methods for maintaining reliability and validity. Section 2 also

included an explanation of why a qualitative, multiple case study was more suitable than

other methods and designs to explore business strategies that successful business leaders

adopted to manage and integrate multicultural workforce after implementing cross-border

M&As that national cultural differences between the acquirers and targets often hindered

business owners from managing diverse work environment. Section 2 concluded the

proposal section. Upon passing the oral defense and obtaining IRB approval, I proceeded

to Section 3 with data collection and analysis. Section 3 encompassed the findings and

results of this research, application to professional practice, implications for social

change, and suggestions for action, potential future studies, reflections, and conclusion.

Section 3: Application to Professional Practice and Implications for Change

Introduction

The purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to explore strategies the

leaders of ICT companies use to integrate diverse workers following cross-border M&As

using the knowledge of different national cultures. Participants in the study were eight

integration managers who had experience in integrating a culturally diverse workforce

acquired from a high context culture into the acquiring workforce of a low context, home-

country culture after closing the the deals of a cross-border M&A. I analyzed interview

responses from the eight integration managers who represented seven acquiring firms in

the United States, Canada, France, and Norway to answer the research question. I

conducted methodological triangulation by examining publicly available company

documents, including company websites, SNS pages, and media articles.

Three major themes emerged from the data analysis that revealed the

postacquisition cultural integration challenges induced by differences in national cultures

and strategies that the participants used to resolve the challenges. In the first theme,

participants identified differences in transparency levels between diverse workers as a

barrier to building a collaborative environment in the workplace where workers could

share information and exchange open conversations to create value. The second theme

involved complexities in aligning the acquired workers’ business practices and working

styles with those of the acquiring firm workers, and the third theme revealed

decisionmaking challenges and solutions related to different communication styles

between the high context and low context cultures. Participants highlighted cross-cultural

education for both acquired and acquiring firm workers and relationship building as the

most important considerations to ensure creation of new value after cross-border M&As.

This section includes the presentation of the findings, applications to professional

practice, implications for social change, recommendations for action and further research,

and reflections on the study.

Presentation of the Findings

The overarching research question was the following: What strategies do leaders

of ICT companies use to integrate diverse workers after cross-border M&As? I conducted

semistructured interviews using open-ended questions to generate the necessary narrative

data to perform thematic analysis based on five-phase thematic analysis as outlined by

Yin (2018). Yin suggested that a qualitative researcher should follow five phases when

analyzing data. The five steps are (a) compiling, (b) disassembling, (c) reassembling, (d)

interpreting, and (e) concluding the data collected from multiple participants to generate

empirical findings (Roberts & Brown, 2019). The researcher should follow these five

steps to discover patterns, insights, or concepts by manipulating or juxtaposing the data

collected from different interviewees (Yin, 2018).

Eight business executives representing ICT companies in the United States,

Canada, France, and Norway participated in the study. Participants had experience in

integrating a diverse workforce created after implementing international acquisitions of

foreign targets mostly in Asian countries. Each integration manager was coded as IM1

through IM8. Table 2 is a summary of the demographic information of the eight

participants, and Table 3 shows national cultural distances between the acquirers and

their acquisition targets based on Hofstede’s (2001) five dimensions of national cultural

indices.

Table 2

Participant Demographics

Participant Title in company Industry Acquirer’s

location

Target’s locations

IM1 Senior executive Simulation

software

Canada India, Malaysia,

and Singapore

IM2 Advisor to chief

executive officer

(CEO) & chief

operation officer

(COO)

Semiconductor United States Japan

IM3 President and

founder

Digital media Norway Poland and

United Kingdom

IM4 Senior vice

president

Semiconductor United States Japan

IM5 Department

director

Electronic

commerce

United States Japan

IM6 Division chief Internet

technology

United States Japan

IM7 Country manager Computer

services

France United Kingdom

and United States

IM8 Vice president Mobile

application

Canada China and Japan

Table 3

National Cultural Indices of Acquirers and Targets

Country Region PD UA IC MF LTO

China Asia 80 30 20 66 87

India Asia 77 40 48 56 51

Japan Asia 54 92 46 95 88

Malaysia Asia 100 36 26 50 41

Singapore Asia 74 8 20 48 72

Poland Europe 68 93 60 64 38

France Europe 68 86 71 43 63

Norway Europe 31 50 69 8 35

United Kingdom Europe 35 35 89 66 51

Canada North America 39 48 80 52 36

United States North America 40 46 91 62 26

Participants responded to 10 open-ended interview questions, as well as follow-up

probes used during each interview to elicit further detail and insight. Using NVivo 12, I

coded each interview transcript and created a total of 53 codes for observed integration

challenges and strategic solutions during the thematic analysis. Based on Hofstede’s

(2001) five dimensions of national cultural theory, I clustered the codes by nature of the

answers, relationships, patterns, similarities, and commonalities. Three themes emerged

after clustering the codes: workplace transparencies, business practices and working

styles, and communication styles. Under each theme, codes were grouped into two to four

subthemes based on the nature of the issues and similarities, as outlined in Table 4.

Table 4

Thematic Hierarchy of Challenges and Strategies for Cultural Integrations

Themes Subthemes Codes

dimensions

Theme 1: Workplace

transparencies

Theme 2: Business

practices and

working styles

Theme 3:

Communication

styles

Challenges in sharing

information and updating

work status

Interpersonal rivalry

Background criticism

against foreign managers

Differences in business plan

cycles

Task-oriented versus

process-oriented

Acknowledging

differences

Relationship building with

acquired workers Keen

awareness of

hierarchies

Detail level of information

and decision-making

speed

(a) Open vs. closed, (b) Work status, (c)

Cultural education/training program, (d)Team

performance, (e) Cultural nuances, (f) Pride,

(g) Communication tools, (h) Alpha employee,

(i) relationship building, (j) Tacit conversation,

PD, MF,

IC,

(a) Assertiveness, (b) Intraorganization worker

exchange, (c) Liaison, Alpha employee, (d)

Upfront conversation, (d) Harsh remarks, (e)

Trust

PD, MF

(a) Mixed emotions, (b) Cross-functional team,

MF, IC

(a) Long-term view, (b) Quarterly based

financial report, (c) Cultural education/training

program, (d) Data-driven decision method, (e)

Flexibilities in long-term plans

LTO

(a) Task conflicts vs. process conflicts, (b)

Efficiency, (c) Training program, (d) Group

consensus, (e) Key Performance Indicators

(KPIs), (f) Spillovers, (g) Knowledge transfer,

LTO, IC,

(a) Ethics, (b) DNA-level differences, (c)

Physically work together, (d) Mental filter, (e)

Work as a group approach

PD, IC,

(a) Rapport, (b) Time consuming, (c)

Humility,

LTO

(a) Hierarchy, (b) Slow decisions, (c)

Miscommunications, (d) Acculturation speed,

(e) Silence during meetings, (f) Open

conversation, (g) Cultural education for both

managers and subordinates, (h) worker

exchange, mentoring,

PD, UA

(a) Accuracies, (b) Trust/distrust, (c) Delayed

decisions, (e) Repetitive questions, (f)

Education program, (g) Individual meeting.

UA, PD

Challenges and Strategies of Cultural Integration Related to National Cultures

Participants addressed what they observed as disagreements or conflicts related to

different national cultures among the diverse workforce composed of acquirer acquired

workers after cross-border M&As. Three distinct patterns emerged after analyzing the

responses from each participant concerning the acquired workers’ behaviors that

appeared to have created multiple barriers for IMs to conduct their cultural integrations:

workplace transparencies, business practices and working styles, and communications

styles. When the cross-border acquisition deal was closed in 2011, the then chief

executive officer of IM2’s organization told the media that he was excited to “welcome

the [target’s] employees” to the acquirer “family” and expected to “create immediate

value for customers, partners, and investors.” IM2 mentioned, however, “it rarely

happened that the outcomes [of the acquired workers’ performance] exceeded the

expectations.” Jedin and Saad (2016) found that more than 50% of the cross-border

M&As were unsuccessful in meeting stakeholders’ expectations to create value because

of the national cultural differences that could have created conflicts in multicultural

management.

The first theme was related to the different levels of transparency in the workplace

between the workers of acquiring and acquired firms with eight out of eight (100%)

participants reporting that lack of transparency in acquired workers’ behaviors, such as

less open conversations and the general tendency to become reactive in discussions with

managers and share less information with colleagues, as one of the most common

challenges that negatively affected integration efforts. IM5 reported a unique behavior of

the acquired workers in high PD and high MF cultures: “on the one hand, they [acquired

workers] respect the foreign CEO, but on the other hand, they also have a feeling of

contempt.” IM4 also mentioned “the U.S. employees from the acquirer often expressed a

sense of closeness in the acquired Japanese worker’s behavior.” Less transparent

characters were often observed in high PD, high MF, or low IC cultures where people

tend to accept inequality in power distribution, be assertive in human interactions, and

avoid expressing personal opinions in a group (Hofstede, 2011; Khlif, 2016; Maranga &

Sampayo, 2015).

The second theme involved different business practices and work styles that eight

(100%) participants reported in response to the questions related to MF, IC, and LTO as

substantial issues for getting firm workers to collaborate with acquired workers in joint

projects or doing business as a team. IM3 mentioned an expected challenge that an

acquired worker from a high PD culture showed an overly proud attitude regarding his

ranking in the office by saying “the [acquired] U.K. executive was surprised to share a

workspace and sit together with other colleagues because of his [higher] rank.” The U.K.

executive asked IM3 to distinguish him from others by providing a private office. IM8

noticed a strong awareness of gender roles among the acquired workers in the high MF

and noted “the male workers in Japan were not as deferential to her [female manager] as I

would expect them to be.” Workers in high MF countries assume inequality in gender

roles, and the workers in high PD countries usually accept inequality in power

distribution among the workers (Hofstede, 2015).

The third theme was different communication styles of high context culture

workers, which eight (100%) participants noted in connection with PD and UA as

obstacles to deal with acquired workers in day-to-day activities. IM4 said “subordinates

in Japan may be accustomed to direct or prescriptive orders and directions on how to do

the things,” whereas “the U.S.-based manager may want to give some freedom to the

employees to think about how they wish to accomplish the tasks.” When communicating

with acquired Japanese workers, IM5 shared his experience that he had to “communicate

everything by email” every time IM5 needed to instruct the acquired workers what to do.

Japan is a high UA and relatively high PD country as opposed to the United States, where

people are relatively low in UA and PD levels (Hofstede, 2011). Although the workers in

the United States might be tolerant in ambiguous or unstructured environments (C. J.

Chang et al., 2016), Japanese workers might feel threatened by ambiguous or uncertain

communications (Curtis et al., 2016).

Eight out of eight (100%) participants shared strategies or measurements used to

improve the worker relationships by implementing cultural understanding education for

both acquired and acquiring firm workers that involved various levels of personnel within

their organizations. IM4 said “through cross-functional discussions, members could

create an atmosphere conducive for knowledge transfer, and we forced the members to

continue working in a cross-functional team.” Cross-cultural training might be helpful for

individuals functioning in positions of international business to avoid potential harm to

the organization (Taylor & Zhou, 2019). IM4 stated that “both managers [from the

acquirer] and the subordinates [from the target] should be educated on some cultural

nuances.” IM6 mentioned in association with integrating acquired Japanese workers to

the U.S. workers from the acquirer that “I tried to adjust the American side more so just

because I felt that having the team will work together as opposed to against each other

would help foster team growth.” Cross-cultural training would be more effective if it

were given to both the acquirer and the acquired foreign target (Haspeslagh & Jemison,

1991; Lawson & Shepherd, 2019). To reduce the risk of cultural clash and integration

failure, educating the merged workers with high cross-cultural intelligence might be

imperative for a multicultural organization to consider implementing in the early stage of

postacquisition integration (Kaleramna, Saharan, & Singh, 2019).

Theme 1: Workplace Transparencies

Participants discussed the challenges related to worker transparency concerning

the behaviors as to (a) information sharing, (b) interpersonal competitions and rivalries,

and (c) criticism by gossip as some common phenomena they observed associated with

PD, MF, and IC differences. Eight out of eight (100%) participants reported workplace

transparency issues as a major challenge to integrate workers. Four participants (50%)

commented that some acquired workers in a high MF culture like Japan tended to display

relatively closed attitudes toward sharing information with colleagues and managers.

Although American workers “were very communicative and very open,” according to

IM7, IM4 noted his observation of the acquired Japanese workers who appeared to be

“hesitant in sharing information.” IM5 commented that the information was sometimes

viewed as “power” or “weapon” in Japan, which was a “challenge for Americans.”

Information sharing is an essential aspect of workplace transparency that is imperative for

workers to be open to exchanging feedback between each other and aligning with the

same goals of the organization (Haesevoets et al., 2019). Challenges in encouraging

workers to share information might become a major barrier for IMs to conduct worker

integration because information sharing is considered an important resource that can help

realize synergies and accelerate innovation (Y. Chang et al., 2015).

Four (50%) participants described hidden rivalries potentially existing among

colleagues that often hindered harmonious cooperation between them. According to the

IM4, while workers in the United States were “competitive about winning against

competitors in business,” the workers in Japan were “more aggressive in taking pride in

winning and demonstrating they were the best players in the industry.” The existence of

rivalry between individuals and the notion that winning in competition is important would

be more pronounced in high MF cultures where people were more assertive (Hofstede,

2011). The leader might be required to moderate interpersonal rivalry between the

workers when integrating acquired workers in high MF cultures into an acquiring

organization in a low MF culture because the rivalry could discourage information

sharing and the creation of synergies and value (Y. Chang et al., 2015).

Two (25%) participants expressed difficulty in dealing with criticisms or gossips

against managers made in the backgrounds by acquired Japanese workers in low IC

cultures and perceived a sense of closedness in their attitudes toward foreign managers

and workers from acquiring firms. IM5 said “you need to play hard with Japanese

employees because you’re never gonna be their friends, you’re never going to be their

equal, or you’re never going to be part of their tribe.” IM4 commented “we often had

challenges in understanding what direction the acquired Japanese workers wished to

move.” Openness would be an underpinning of workplace transparency and a key to

enhanced team performance and collaborative climate (Shum, Gatling, Book, & Bai,

2019). IM4’s company value statement noted “we draw out the best in each other,

recognizing that diversity of backgrounds and experience are key strengths. We all win

when we support each other.” Integration leaders also need to consider achieving

workplace transparency by acknowledging and following acquired workers’ unique traits,

because forcing the acquired workers on transparency without understanding their values

may cause worker stress (Haesevoets et al., 2019), which may lead to poor team

performance (Shaukat et al., 2017).

Sharing information and updating work status. Six participants (75%)

responded regarding the challenges associated with different behaviors concerning the

information sharing between acquired workers and acquiring firm workers. IM4

mentioned “many U.S. workers appear to be more open and transparent about sharing

information, whereas the acquired Japanese workers tend to display relatively closed

behaviors toward information sharing.” IM4’s company value statement noted “we share

information and encourage different views in an open and honest environment.” Workers

in high MF or masculine, high PD, or collectivistic cultures may display more closed

attitudes toward disclosing information and less team collaboration because of the high

levels of assertiveness and tendency to encourage competitions between the members

inside the same team or the cultural group and those outside (Hofstede, 2011; Khlif,

2016; Maali & Al-Attar, 2017; Rao & Pearce, 2016). IM4’s concern about less

information sharing attitude of the acquired workers was reasonable. Workers could

create a nonconflictive environment and cope with uncertainties related to new ideas by

sharing information (Andrijauskienė & Dumčiuvienė, 2017).

When supervising the workers collaborating on a project that involved various

staff across functional boundaries in the organization, IM4 observed closed attitudes in

acquired workers in high context culture workers in Japan into the acquirer’s workforce

in a relatively low context culture in the United States. IM4 described,

The U.S. employees from the acquirer who joined a team in the target in Japan

reported on a sense of closeness in the acquired Japanese worker’s behavior. The

U.S. workers had challenges in understanding which directions the acquired

Japanese workers wished to move, whether or not they had any specific business

ideas in mind, whether they were making progress in the projects, or whether they

were just not interested in sharing information to solve the problems better. If

other team members asked for work related information from acquired Japanese

workers, they tended to be hesitant in disclosing information to colleagues and did

not communicate openly with them.

Four (50%) participants associated the value of cultural education with their successful

management of less transparent acquired workers in high PD cultures. IM1 said “I sent

some groups of engineers and managers from Montreal and let them sit together with

workers in our subsidiaries in Asia for conducting a training program there.” IM1’s

company profile on its SNS pages noted that its business success was the “result of the

diverse ideas” brought up by employees. An IM would be able to achieve a cross-border

acquisition successfully if the IM could foster cultural educations as part of the

integration process (Hirsch, 2015). According to IM4’s company SNS pages, IM4’s

organization supported the creation of “affinity network groups” within the organization

that provided “education on how to work alongside one another.” IM4 shared a successful

strategy he used in cross-cultural training and said,

We assigned some U.S. based managers from the acquiring company and the

acquired employees from the target in Japan to relocate to the reciprocal countries

and join work teams. These foreign members became seeding staff who helped

the teammates to get used to different cultures and practices in the reciprocal

organization.

IM5 said “the information is viewed as a power in Japan, and the one who has the

information is seen as the most powerful person. People in Japan use information as a

weapon. So, I think that is a challenge for Americans.” IM7 responded regarding less

transparent behavior perceived in management in a high PD culture when IM7’s company

in France initially closed the deal of a cross-border acquisition of an American company.

IM7 said,

I thought the team members in the United States were very communicative and

open. However, at the time our CEO based in France first announced [about the

M&A deal], there was a very minimal explanation as to why and what it would

mean going forward so that American workers seemed anxious about their own

life.

Workers in low PD cultures, such as the United States, exhibit better team

collaborations and trust in fellow team members regardless of their social status (Rao &

Pearce, 2016). Japan and France are higher in PD levels than the United States and are

also more collectivistic (Hofstede, 1983, 2001). High PD workers show characteristics to

emphasize responsibility to insiders as opposed to external people, which may make the

Japanese and French workers tend to disclose less information to outsiders (Maali & Al-

Attar, 2017).

IM1 said,

To educate the acquired workers in high PD cultures in Malaysia, Singapore, and

India regarding how they could work together to achieve similar software

development projects, I showed other teams at the headquarters had completed in

the North American market.

IM1 shared his experience of successful attempts to reconcile tensions among

acquired workers in high PD cultures in Asia over better positions within the group

companies by providing a series of training programs to the acquired workers in Asia to

disseminate some essential collaboration cultures practiced in the headquarters using

some case studies. An organization must train people with high cross-cultural intelligence

to meet the increasing demand for international talent and to reduce the risk of

crossborder business failure (Kaleramna et al., 2019).

IM4 also commented on the closedness demonstrated by the acquired Japanese

employees, which the participant observed as their pride in accomplishing work

assignments without assistance. IM4 noted that “the Japanese workers might want to be

the best so that they won’t need help from others,” whereas the workers in the United

States “do not necessarily take pride in demonstrating to be the best, although they prefer

winning against competitors.” IM4 and IM5 commented that the U.S. employees did not

hesitate to ask for help when they needed or if they faced uncertainties on assigned

projects. IM4 said,

We provided training programs for the acquired workers from the target in Japan.

Through the training of the use of such various tools we had, each Japanese

employee might have started feeling as if they were suggested to accomplish the

jobs by him or herself as opposed to asking for help. The U.S. supervisors need to

make the acquired Japanese workers understand that they could work with others

on projects and could find colleagues to help.

Cooperation and caring values were associated more with feminine cultures

(Hofstede, 2011), which focused on a supportive climate by sharing information and

promoting collaborations (Andrijauskienė & Dumčiuvienė, 2017). IM5 said,

You need to create the rulebook. But at the same time, you have to be cognizant

of who they are. And I would say just create a good reward system that rewards

individuals for their achievement. I think that’s probably one of the best ways you

could do it and then get all the Japanese lieutenants under you behind you and

have them [alpha employees] work directly with other Japanese employees and

make them do all the long term drinking all the relationship building all the hard

kind of for things is. You have to be the hero not if you’re a hero you have to be

almost like a super executive that’s going to lead them to a better future. [Let the

Japanese understand he] can’t do it all by himself. He needed people to help him

get his jobs done right.

IM3 dealt with software engineers from Poland, who often impressed IM3 that

they expected to receive more specific, detailed instructions when working on projects

with acquiring firm workers in Norway but did not ask what they did not understand

explicitly. IM3 found the Polish workers’ inclination “not to ask for detailed instructions

frankly” challenging because “the Norwegians usually asked what they needed to know

openly and frankly.” IM3 mentioned to Polish workers “we [Norwegian workers] were

not as detailed as you [Polish workers] might assume” and clearly advised the Polish

workers to “ask questions” more frankly. Miscommunications might lead to task and

process conflicts between culturally different workers (Korovyakovskaya & Chong,

2015).

IM3 reported “it is important to explain that we [Norwegian and Polish workers]

are actually different [from each other] and think in the different ways.” IM3 emphasized

that an IM working with acquired workers from high PD and high UA cultures needed to

explain cultural differences clearly so that they could better collaborate with their

colleagues from the countries of origin of the organizations. IM3 commented “it is not to

say that either culture is right or wrong, but I think two parties should understand each

other correctly to grow the organization together.” To supervise the multicultural

workforce, the integration leader’s various efforts and proactive arrangements in

encouraging employees to exchange views may be necessary (Teerikangas & Irrmann,

2016).

IM2 identified that workers and the manager in a high PD culture sometimes

agreed on the outputs or outcomes in the day-to-day interactions in an implicit manner,

which might make them less transparent about processes. IM2 commented that the

implicit agreement between the workers and managers was often problematic. IM2 said

“it rarely happens that the outcomes exceed expectations.” Korovyakovskaya and Chong

(2016) suggested that the multicultural IMs should take actions to improve workplace

transparency if they recognized the presence of less transparent atmosphere between the

acquired managers and workers. Less transparent culutres in an internationally merged

organization could cause relationship conflicts between workers from the acquirer and the

target (Korovyakovskaya & Chong, 2016). IM2 also said,

Starting with understanding and respecting the differences in behaviors, then

gradually through on-the-job training within the hybrid working groups, we

educated and trained Japanese workers to transform their mindset [overly

concerned with hierarchy] and working manner to more Americanized [less

hierarchical] manner.

Interpersonal rivalry problems. Less transparent behaviors may be one of the

most typical characteristics of the workers in high MF cultures because the worker in a

high MF might feel awkward with confessing one’s situation frankly to protect own

position (Maali & Al-Attar, 2017). Four (50%) IMs observed that the workers appeared

to be more inclined to compete against each other in the workplace and become proud in

proving their aggressiveness in high MF or high PD cultures and noted the importance of

leaders’ support in mediating relationship conflicts between the acquiring firm workers

and the acquired workers. IM1 described,

Every time we had a meeting with group leaders of subsidiaries in Malaysia,

Singapore, and India, I observed that they frequently looked at each other and

tried to convince [the other] that one had better knowledge and skills to handle

projects.

IM4 noted that great pride or ambitious dispositions observed in the acquired

workers in a high MF culture in Japan. IM4 said “people in Japan generally showed a

strong tendency that they wanted to be the best in many aspects whatever they would try

to achieve, especially in delivering the highest of qualities for the products or services.”

Comparing with the workers in Japan where the MF level was higher than the United

States, IM4 recognized that the U.S. workers were “not necessarily competitive in taking

pride and in demonstrating they were the best” even though “they were usually

competitive against their competitors in business.” IM4’s company core values statement

also mentioned “we value people who demonstrate a positive, can-do attitude while

collaborating to win.” Workers in masculine societies showed a strong inclination on

competition, achievement, and success in the activities they were engaged

(Andrijauskienė & Dumčiuvienė, 2017) because earnings, recognition, or advancement

were important for both males and females (Yildiz & Vural, 2019). When an organization

in a feminine culture acquired an organization in a masculine culture, the supervisors

needed to develop strategies to reduce worker stress or emotional exhaustion associated

with relationship conflicts between the acquired and acquiring firm workers’ different

levels of aggressiveness (Torresl, Alcántara, Rudolph, & Viruell, 2016).

To make changes in the acquired workers’ assertive attitudes, IM4 conducted an

intraorganization worker exchange program to train some employees from the acquired

organizations to become liaisons between the acquirer and the target to bridge

communications gaps in between. IM4 explained,

Some employees from the target in Japan were invited to join some teams in the

acquirer in the United States to understand better how the acquiring organization

was operating. These employees from both organizations became liaisons

between the acquirer and the target to bridge communications gaps in between.

Similarly, we also identified some important individuals, not executives, from the

target in Japan who could adapt more to the acquirer’s decision-making style and

the operating style. We brought these key individuals to the acquirer and

integrated into some work teams at the acquirer for one to two years to reinforce

some of the characteristics and attributes useful to work with employees at the

acquirer in the United States.

To align the rest of the workers in the acquired target, IM4 provided the

successfully trained liaisons with more authoritative powers. IM4 stated,

After spending a couple of years, these Japanese key individuals were moved

back to the target side and promoted as supervisors with more responsibilities and

more critical roles than before. These key individuals could also distribute the

lessons they learned and the relationships they built during their terms at the

acquirer throughout the target.

The workers in a high PD culture were more willing to follow the leaders who possessed

more power (Y. Chang et al., 2015).

One (12.5%) participant talked about potential rivalry made by the acquired

workers in a masculine culture against the manager of the acquiring firm. IM8 said “to

some degree, they [acquired workers in Japan] often went off from my directions and

suggested a different idea in product designs and seemed to be trying to control the whole

project.” Many of the companies had objectives to collaborate and create synergies when

they conducted cross-border acquisitions as mentioned in IM8’s corporate website noting

“we started investment and collaborations for expansion of our business into North

America and Asian Countries, focusing on Japan first.” IM3’s corporate website also

expressed its strong interest in learning “from international partners.” One of the

advantages of conducting cross-border acquisitions was to gain access to an international

market through the target (Bany-Ariffin et al., 2016; M. Hu & Ngo, 2015; Tripathi &

Lamba, 2015). Acquired workers’ knowledge of the local market could also enhance the

firm’s competitive position in the market and could lead to the creation of sustainable

competitive advantages to survive in the global market (Ahammad et al., 2016; Ai & Tan,

2017). If acquired workers had an assertive, masculine culture, the integration managers

in a less masculine culture might need to develop effective strategies to maintain rapport

with acquired workers because relationship engagement was positively associated with an

M&A performance in motivating the staff (Jedin & Saad, 2016).

To solve issues connected to the acquired Japanese workers’ overconcerned

attitudes toward hierarchy, hidden interpersonal rivalries, and less transparent attitudes,

IM5 shared experience of assigning an employee from the acquired target who could

liaise between the manager, acquirer’s workers, and the acquired workers. IM5 noted

“the liaison or ‘alpha employee’ was an open-minded, genuine person accustomed to low

PD cultures and admired by most of the rest of the employees in the target.” When IM5

wanted to show dissatisfaction with the acquired workers’ performance, IM5 could

convey negative feedback to the liaison who customized the message for the acquired

workers to accept naturally to reduce the chances of reacting negatively by becoming

more closed or further increasing the level of awareness of hierarchy. Because the people

in high PD cultures would be prone to obey and follow influential people (Curtis et al.,

2016), assigning a liaison was an effective way to align less transparent workers who

were overly concerned with hierarchies to the acquirer in a low PD culture.

IM5 emphasized the point that honest conversations maintained trust with

acquired workers in high UA and collectivistic cultures. A leadership style that involves

open and honest communications would be one of the most critical factors leading to

integration successes (Osarenkhoe & Hyder, 2015). IM5 noted that showing honest

feelings that the integration manager believed to be seen from the acquired workers’

perspective was helpful. IM5 said “you [an integration manager] had to become humble,

and if you say to your acquired workers that you understand and feel the pain that the

acquired worker might be feeling, that might be helpful.” IM5 added “sometimes, it was

necessary to keep pace with acquired workers and criticize together about the poor

leaders [of the acquirer].” IM5 noted the “humility and honest posture” of the integration

manager “could often reconcile potential criticisms or cold gossips among the acquired

workers in a high UA culture.” Trust with people in a different culture evolves over time

through repeated interactions because relationships can mature with interaction

frequency, duration, and the diversity of challenges that partners encounter and face

together (Zaks, 2016). IM5’s managers appeared to be in accordance with the

organization’s value statement, which noted “we’ll celebrate differences and the ways it

can change how we work and lead to bigger wins” and “we’ll invite diverse perspectives

and make sure we take on challenges in an honest, open and respectful manner.

To develop trust with the acquired workers, IM8 noted giving harsh remarks to

the workers was necessary when the performance of the acquired workers was not

satisfactory. IM8 said “I communicated [with acquired workers] basically by saying that

this is not what I want. You are not making what I want!” Tran et al. (2016) noted when a

leader from an individualistic culture managed a work team in a collectivistic culture, the

team performance might be low if a level of trust among teammates was low. In a

collectivistic culture, honest and upfront conversations would be important because

workers might avoid questioning directly in authority and often led to poor performance

(Maranga & Sampayo, 2015).

IM8 talked about potential rivalry made by the acquired workers in a masculine

culture against the manager of the acquiring firm. IM8 said “to some degree, they

(acquired workers in Japan) often went off from my directions and suggested a different

idea in product designs and seemed to be trying to control the whole project.” One of the

advantages of conducting cross-border acquisitions was to gain access to an international

market through the target (Bany-Ariffin et al., 2016; M. Hu & Ngo, 2015; Tripathi &

Lamba, 2015). Acquired workers’ knowledge of the local market could also enhance the

firm’s competitive position in the market and could lead to the creation of sustainable

competitive advantages to survive in the global market (Ahammad et al., 2016; Ai & Tan,

2017). IM8 appeared to have experienced a challenge that the acquired foreign workers

behaved against the intention found on his company’s profile, which noted “passion is to

invest, create, collaborate, and educate worldwide, embracing the natural environment

and cultures of many lands.” If workers had an assertive, masculine culture, the

integration managers in a less masculine culture might need to develop effective

strategies to maintain rapport with acquired workers because relationship engagement

was positively associated with an M&A performance in motivating the staff (Jedin &

Saad, 2016).

One (12.5%) participant showed appreciation of assertiveness and the tendency of

creating an interpersonal rivalry displayed by acquired workers in a masculine culture.

IM6 expressed “[acquired] Japanese workers were masculine, and they were very

competitive. But it worked for me as a manager because I was also competitive and

wanted to take down competitors in a business environment.” A news article written on

IM6’s organization revealed the company’s high competitiveness in the job acceptance

rate, showing that the company received “over 3 million applications and hired 7000

employees” during 2016, which resulted in “an acceptance rate of 0.2 %.” The

competitiveness was related to masculine cultures (Hofstede, 2011), where workers

emphasized the work goals and confident attitudes when facing a confrontation or a

challenge (Chang et al., 2015). Conflicts in tasks among team members might be helpful

in fostering team performance if the workers better understood task issues in the team

(Appelhoff et al., 2016). As IM6 practiced, leaders could support the high MF culture

workers’ propensity for the interpersonal rivalry to enhance worker performance.

Background criticism against foreign managers. During the interviews, two

(25%) participants repeatedly mentioned that acquired workers in a high context culture

sometimes displayed mixed emotions and closed attitudes toward managers or the

colleagues who had joined from the acquiring organization. In a highly collectivistic

culture, workers might disclose less information to outsiders because they tended to

prioritize relationships with insiders (Maali & Al-Attar, 2017). IM5 said, Acquired

workers in a low IC [collectivistic] culture showed respect to the manager and workers

came from the acquiring organization when they met in a face-to-face setting. But when

the manager was not present, they seemed to have criticized the manager and the

colleagues of the acquirer for not knowing adequately about the culture of the host

country sometimes harshly. IM4 talked about frustration with his acquired workers in a

collectivistic culture regarding the difficulty in understanding their minds, ideas, issues,

or the directions they might wish to move, which IM4 and other acquiring firm workers

perceived as closeness.

IM4 commented on some successful outcomes from the adoption of

crossfunctional teams involving various employees and managers at different levels from

both the acquirer in an individualistic culture and the target in a collective culture to

foster collaborations. IM4’s company value statement showed “we treat each other with

dignity and respect.” Workers of the acquiring and acquired organizations would both

need to understand respective national cultures to align themselves with new

organizational strategies (Haspeslagh & Jemison, 1991). IM4 mandated the employees to

participate in a cross-functional team to boost sharing knowledge and information while

IM4 was integrating the acquired Japanese executives and employees. IM4 said,

We often forced our employees to join cross-functional team meetings between

the members of the acquirer in the United States and the target in Japan. We

required the members of the cross-functional team to practice some level of

openness by assigning them to accomplish tasks on a cross-functional basis so

that they could not avoid sharing information across the borders and boundaries

between different teams and organizations. By letting the members from different

sections at different levels work in a cross-functional team, we spurred knowledge

transfer by encouraging the workers to share information proactively.

IM4 reported that, by assembling the members from different sections at different

levels to participate in a cross-functional team, IM4 was successful in creating an

atmosphere in the organization that promoted team collaborations. IM4 said “members

created an atmosphere conducive to transfer knowledge through cross-functional

discussions, and we obliged the members to continue working in a cross-functional team

until they became comfortable to interact with each other in an open environment.” More

than 70% of ICT companies used cross-functional teams as an effective means to

organize work and execute international projects (Fostering collaboration, 2019).

IM1 also supported the idea of implementing a cross-functional team to help

diverse workers create a collaborative work environment. IM1 said “managers, group

leaders, technicians, and all other levels cooperated in integration efforts [through

crossfunctional teams]. Members of both acquiring and acquired sides worked together

and understood each party’s work process and what we were expecting to achieve

together.” Cross-functional collaborations could generate a positive effect on the work

processes and procedures in an organization that has a culture to foster the creation of

innovations in products and services (Locander, Weinberg, & Locander, 2018).

IM5 shared the experience of how he solved the issues connected to acquired

workers’ less transparent behaviors linked to overconcerned attitudes with hierarchy and

hidden interpersonal rivalries by assigning an employee from the acquired target, who

could liaise between the manager, acquirer’s workers, and the acquired workers. IM5

noted “the liaison or an ‘alpha employee’ to convey negative feedback to the acquired

workers so that they could accept the feedback without displaying negative reactions by

becoming more closed or further increasing the level of awareness of hierarchy. The

people in high PD cultures were prone to obey and follow influential people (Curtis et al.,

2016). Assigning a liaison was an effective way for IM5 to manage less transparent

workers in a low PD culture.Table 5 shows the frequency of the participants’ responses

related to worker transparency challenges.

Table 5

Workplace Transparencies (Frequency)

Participant Interview questions References

IM1 1, 2, 8 6

IM2 1, 2 6

IM3 2, 11, 3 2

IM4 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8 13

IM5 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 9 21

IM6 5, 6 3

IM7 7 1

IM8 7 1

Theme 2: Business Practices and Working Styles

Leaders of acquiring firms often face challenges stemmed from different business

processes practiced in the targets’ host countries as well as from different mentality (Y.

Chen et al., 2016). All (100.0%) participants recognized challenges related to different

business practices and other work styles between the workers of acquired and acquiring

firms in connection with national cultural dimensions, MF, IC, and LTO. Conflicts in

tasks, processes, and relationships would be significant predictors of potential

miscommunications in a culturally diverse workplace (Korovyakovskaya & Chong,

2015). The differences in cultures and business practices could have both positive and

negative impacts on international business collaborations, and if an integration manager

did not recognize the target’s tendencies, it could lead to tense situations (Taylor & Zhou,

2019).

Differences in business plan cycles. Long-term and short-term orientation could

cause troubles if operating with the opposite partner without understanding the characters

(Taylor & Zhou, 2019). Six (75.0%) participants stated that acquired workers’ different

views of business plan cycles were problematic in managing a joint project that involved

acquirers’ headquarters and executives and employees from targets. IM4 mentioned that

“the U.S. based workers often expressed frustrations with acquired Japanese workers who

had a long-term oriented mind” because “the U.S. based workers executed strategies and

sought results in a much shorter cycle than the Japanese workers would.” Some managers

and employees in high LTO cultures ascribed a high value to future outcomes and

focused more on long-term goals rather than short-term results as opposed to the people

in low LTO or short-term oriented cultures (Sternad & Kennelly, 2017). IM4 mentioned,

We found that Japanese firms typically plan strategies on a 5 to 10-year term. By

contrast, the businesspeople in the United States usually review their business activities

on a quarterly basis because they are generally obliged to report on financials to their

shareholders every quarter. When the Japanese workers from the target brought business

proposals, the U.S. management turned down because the return cycle estimated on the

proposal would not be short enough. IM4’s comment appeared to be aligned with one of

the slogans found on its company value statement, which stated “we are accountable for

delivering our commitments on time with highest quality. . . we work intelligently, with a

sense of urgency.” The managers and shareholders in the United States would focus on

how their current actions and decisions would result in a relatively quick payoff for the

business (Taylor & Zhou,

2019).

IM2 also pointed out the quarterly based financial report required for a U.S.

public company as one of the most significant challenges to work with acquired workers

in long-term oriented Japanese workers. IM2 mentioned,

My observation was the difference in time base or time scale of business. A U.S.

public company is rather required to focus on short-term goals because of the

quarterly based financial performance reporting. Therefore, the U.S. workers had

more sensitivity to such a timeline than acquired workers in Japan.

Both IM2 and IM4 reported that, to convince the value of acquisition to the shareholders,

the acquirer in the United States needed to set plans and goals that all teams from product

development to manufacturing could meet the timelines. If workers from the target were

unable to adapt this, the entire organization could encounter a challenge to operate.

Postacquisition integration required well-planned strategies to reduce risk and creating

value to shareholder wealth (Hu & Ngo., 2015) because acquirers could fail in producing

significant returns if consolidation strategies after the acquisitions were unsuccessful

(Reddy et al., 2016).

IM3 also admitted that most Norwegian organizations had a short-term oriented

business mind because “[management in Norway] were expected to report to

shareholders every month or every week with better results than they reported in the

previous term.” Conversely, business people in high LTO cultures, such as China, Japan,

or Korea, tended to emphasize on higher growth rates and developing innovation

capacities by encouraging workers to invest time in achieving long-term success in the

future as opposed to the workers in low LTO cultures such as the countries in North

America or Europe (Andrijauskienė, & Dumčiuvienė, 2017; Damic, Stulec, & Naletina,

2019; Maali & Al-Attar, 2017). IM6 stated,

As a software company [in the United States], we are participating in a

competitive market where things moved very quickly so that the workers needed

to make progress consistently. The acquired workers from the Japanese team

seemed to hardly realize the fact the U.S. team members were not only focusing

on the short-term results but were also thinking about investing time in the

longterm goals.

Regardless of what might happen later in the future, some managers in a low LTO

culture might think that not achieving the expected outcome immediately would be a

great status loss (Hofstede, 2015). Managers in the United States were more likely to

engage in the short-term tactics of positive earnings management and the restriction of

R&D expenses (Miller & Xu, 2019).

Five (62.5%) participants showed support on the needs of an integration manager

to include a training program to educate on the acquirer’s business practices, particularly

when the target was located in a high LTO culture. IM4 said “by letting the acquired

workers understand the reality and removing the cultural nuances, not just telling the

concepts, we practically educated them.” In a high LTO culture, business people would

pay more attention to the status in the future, and business decisions were inclined to

adopt long-term programs (Stoermer et al., 2016). IMs in a low MF and low LTO cultures

might struggle with educating the acquired workers in high LTO cultures during the

integration phases and creating an open environment that could foster information

sharing, transparent attitudes, faster decisions, and establishing goals on a short-term

basis.

IM6 had frequent meetings with the Japanese team and explained that the U.S.

team was not only focusing on the short-term strategies but also looking at the whole

picture of the project when making decisions. Agreements in the decision-making process

could inspire behavior to seek agreement but could hamper team effectiveness (Parayitam

& Papenhausen, 2016). IM6 said “to get them to understand, I allowed the Japanese

teams to take part in the overall business planning to help a long-term strategy.” Workers

in a high LTO culture might appreciate learning from other cultures because their

characteristics encouraged to have a long-term view and higher innovation capacities

allowing to adopt new methods or systems (Andrijauskienė & Dumčiuvienė, 2017).

To respond to the general needs for reporting financial status on the quarterly

basis of a U.S. public company, IM2 commented “this was a 100% educational issue. We

had the acquired Japanese workers engaged in timeline-based operations.” Regarding the

problem of acquired workers’ ignorance of the quarterly based reporting requirement for

U.S. public companies, IM4 took a data-driven communication with acquired

management to highlight the ROI that the acquirer was expected to achieve over certain

periods and convince the shareholders. IM4 said,

We used various data to show the importance of meeting timelines to the acquired

employees from the target so that they could focus on rational decision-making by

taking out any emotions. So, communications with the acquired Japanese

employees involved helping them to understand the rationales behind the projects.

Reviewing its company’s value statement revealed that IM4’s approach appeared to be

aligned with the organization’s motto, signifying the preference on addressing “issues

objectively” by “using facts and constructive feedback in a work atmosphere.” Kantarelis

(2018) stated that decision-making based on rationals could allow management to learn

how to select more valuable alternatives and to define and evaluate criteria of the projects

to work better.

IM7 and IM8 shared some skepticisms about managers in low LTO cultures

regarding their long-term business visions. IM7 showed skepticism “whether they

[managers in high LTO cultures] could achieve their goals if the market conditions

changed over time.” IM8 commented that the management and the workers in Canada

often reacted by questioning how the organization could attain a long-term strategy

proposed by the acquired workers in Japan. IM8 said,

It is quite common that [workers in a high LTO culture] talk about business

strategies targeted over the 5 to 10 years from now in Japan. A long-term strategy

might be more acceptable if the strategy could fully make sense and

understandable to us.

Managers in LTO cultures often endorsed business strategies and new ideas, even

if they were contradictory to already established value systems because they accepted

short-term losses for long-term potential gains (Hofstede, 2011). By contrast, the

managers in low LTO cultures usually avoided adopting contradictory or novel opinions

(Hofstede, 2011) and might cause adverse effects on the processes and decision-making

associated with value assumptions (Stoermer et al., 2016).

IM7 noted that acquired workers in a high LTO culture needed to “break down the

long-term business plan and set short- or medium-term goals within the plan.” IM8 also

commented “even if you have a long-term plan, it will be subject to changes depending

on what might happen in the future with the market, technologies, or consumer

preferences.” People needed to be open to those changes because, IM8 said, “such

changes are inevitable” while executing a long-term plan.” Workers in high LOT cultures

were likely to accept new ideas or innovative thinking in work processes and

methodologies as long as they can apply the long-term vision in the overall business plan

(Andrijauskienė & Dumčiuvienė, 2017; Hofstede, 2011).

Task-oriented versus process-oriented. Seven (87.5%) participants discussed

different focuses between the acquired and the acquiring firm workers regarding how

tasks should be done or how many tasks to be achieved. If a leader prioritized task

integration and ignored worker integration, employees might develop negative emotions

with anger and insecurity in their newly merged organization (Bansal, 2015). In a

collectivistic culture, workers would cherish human relationships over tasks (Hofstede,

2001).

Regarding the acquired Japanese workers in a collectivistic and high LTO

cultures, IM4 commented “workers in Japan appeared to be more task-oriented” where as

“the workers in an individualistic culture in the United States were process-oriented.” A

business leader in a low LTO culture might perceive the workers in a high LTO culture

wasting a considerable amount of time on completing tasks and costs without making

much progress in a short period but might recognize the firm would gain more values in

the long run (Peng & Beamish, 2014). IM4 noticed that a Japanese employee typically

created a list of tasks when working on a project and focused on the tasks through the list

to be evaluated based on how long the worker stayed in the office and engaged in items

shown on the list each day. IM4 discovered some Japanese employees working late in the

office rather than going home. IM4 asserted that acquired Japanese workers rarely

expressed concerns on how efficiently or productively they could achieve their jobs.

In contrast to the Japanese workers, IM4 noted that “their [U.S. workers’]

performance was not measured based on how much time the employees would spend on

tasks.” IM4 said “the U.S. workers are more concerned with how quickly and effectively

they can handle the tasks. When they finished their work, the U.S. workers would either

go home or start working on the next project.” IM2 commented on the difference in the

way how tasks were assigned between the United States and Japan. IM2 said,

The Japanese workers seemed accustomed to working on pieces of multiple tasks

without questioning what the tasks would be until all pieces of tasks handled by

other colleagues were put together, whereas the U.S. workers preferred to take on

tasks that were individually assigned to attain one outcome separately.

Disagreements among team members on the way how tasks should be achieved

could cause consistent, negative impacts on team performance (Korovyakovskaya &

Chong, 2016; Medina, 2016).

As a way of mediating the acquiring firm workers’ negative perceptions against

the acquired workers’ task-oriented behavior, IM4 conducted a training program for

acquired workers by sending some managers from the acquirer to the target’s site. IM4

said,

We sent some supervisors from the acquirer in the United States to the target site

to conduct a training program to find out how to help our teams with acquired

Japanese workers to become more efficient and how we could communicate and

deliver at the pace we expected. The program covered some topics on how the

Japanese workers might be able to utilize better the available systems, tools, and

other existed functions that could help them improve productivity and accelerate

the pace they worked. One element of the cultural change was to focus on

effectiveness and efficiency (speed) in completing assignments rather than on the

quantity of work performed. Through the training of use of such various tools we

had, each Japanese employee might have started feeling as if they were suggested

to accomplish the jobs by him or herself as opposed to asking for help. The U.S.

supervisors needed to make the acquired Japanese workers understand that they

could work with others on projects and could find colleagues for help.

Conflicts in processes or member relationships could lead to decreasing

individuals’ effectiveness at connecting ideas from disparate cultures (Maranga &

Sampayo, 2015) and might trigger potential miscommunications in culturally diverse

work teams (Korovyakovskaya & Chong, 2015). To achieve unity among a diverse

workforce and to improve team performance, IMs would should strive to manage

potential conflicts in work processes to lessen stresses among the workers

(Korovyakovskaya & Chong, 2016; Medina, 2016).

Regarding potential conflicts related to how workers should handle the tasks, IM8

reported a challenge that the acquired workers in a collectivistic culture in Japan spent a

long time to seek group consensus before working on the tasks. IM8 said “they [the

Japanese workers] always ask many questions over and over again, and I guess that is

because they also wanted us [the Canadian manager] to have a consensus on everything,

even about the sunrise today.” IM8 explained that the long decision-making behavior of

the Japanese workers was problematic because it usually caused delays in the work

schedule. Slow decision-making is one of the primary causes of delays in projects

(Parvaneh, Akbar, & Majid, 2018).

In an individualistic culture, workers exhibited high respect for individuals and

preference for making personal decisions (Park, 2016), while people might not always

make decisions independently because the influence of group members on the decisions

might be stronger in a collectivistic culture than in an individualistic culture (de Mooij,

2015). To accelerate the pace of work and complete the tasks on time, IM8 needed to

intervene in communications with acquired workers on behalf of the acquiring firm

workers. IM8 said “I took an individualistic approach and instructed the Japanese

workers to make own individual decisions about what they think would be the best

without even consulting back with me [the management].” Leaders could diminish the

challenges that would hamper postintegration performance by creating unified views and

increasing the speed of decisions through facilitating worker communications to gain

group consensus (Parola et al., 2015).

IM1 described a challenge he faced when supervising the acquired Asian workers

and the acquiring workers in Canada and said “Asian workers usually achieved higher

KPIs (key performance indicators) on tasks that they were good at handling than the

workers in Canada did.” Workers in India, Malaysia, or Singapore have relatively high

PD levels where people were motivated to perform well and seek higher positions to gain

authoritative power (Hofstede, 2011). IM1 said,

They [Asian workers] seemed to have a common tendency to outperform

competitors or other colleagues in the same organizations by focusing and

working hard only on the tasks they could manage more proficiently to

accomplish better results. However, they did not work hard on other tasks with

the same level of diligence in general.

In the Canadian culture, IM1 said “the workers took on every task if it was part of

the job and sometimes achieved lower KPIs where they were not necessarily good at” and

that workers frequently displayed feelings of anger, frustrations, and distrust about each

other’s work processes as a result. People in high PD cultures would accept inequality in

power balance regardless of whether it might be legitimate or not (Hofstede, 2011).

One (12.5%) participant pointed out some positive aspects about working with

employees in collectivistic cultures. IM6 observed that the Japanese work team often

displayed eagerness to help the teams in the United States to achieve goals. IM6 said “the

biggest pain and frustration I found was the Japanese team was always willing to help out

with the North American team in any way shape and form to help us meet our team

goals.” IM6 recognized that the U.S. workers appeared rather harsh to the Japanese teams

and showed less willingness to help when Japanese workers needed help to complete

tasks. IM6 said “when the Japanese team needed help to meet our team goals, the North

American team was forceful like pulling teeth just because they wanted to make it but

wanted to [let them] do it by themselves.” To integrate diverse workers from

individualistic and collectivistic cultures, leaders should consider both positive and

negative aspects of either culture.

Acknowledging the difference. Six (75%) participants noted that compromising

with the gaps in national cultures between the acquired and acquiring firm workers was

inevitable and a critical posture that an integration manager would need to exhibit to the

acquired workers, particularly in high PD and high IC cultures. Maintaining the culture of

the target would be an essential factor for an integration leader to minimize conflicts with

the workers from both organizations (Haspeslagh & Jemison, 1991). Integrating

managers should recognize the cultural distances of the acquired workers and to predict

worker stress and negative sentiments about the merger and the cooperation (Risberg,

2003).

Regarding relatively balanced power distributions across different age groups in

Japan, IM8 introduced communication manners and ethics that worked well in the past

years in Canada to the acquired workers in higher PD culture in Japan. IM8 said,

I understood and recognized the different cultures among the acquired workers in

Japan and worked with them. At the same time, I did not throw out something that

had worked successfully for more than 30 years just because there was an entirely

different way that people would prefer to work.

Although pursuing group harmony could cause slow decisions of the team and

lead to work delays (de Mooij, 2015), group harmony was also necessary to enhance the

innovative performance of the diverse work teams (C. C. Chen et al., 2016). To integrate

diverse workers from individualistic and collectivistic cultures, leaders needed to

consider both positive and negative aspects of either culture.

IM2 commented in connection with acquired workers’ task-oriented manner,

which was often subject to conflict with acquiring firm workers’ process-oriented work

style. IM2 directed acquiring firm team members to “accept the differences to rather

avoid reducing acquired worker’s productivity.” IM2 said,

Making changes in Japanese workers’ behavior was not easy at all. My

observation was that it was a DNA-level issue. My observation was that we

always needed arbiters to compromise the differences to maximize the outcome of

the hybrid team rather than we tried to force them to transform.

As IM2 mentioned, IM2’s company value statement noted “recognizing that

diversity of backgrounds and experience are key strengths.” Providing acquired workers

with some degrees of autonomy would be vital for motivating the workers and creating

value (Haspeslagh & Jemison, 1991; Zhu et al. (2015).

To let the multicultural work team members recognize the differences in each

other’s national cultures, IM3 directed them to work together in the same office. IM3

said,

I encouraged his employees from different countries, including India, Poland,

Turkey, Belarus, and so on, that they work together physically so that they could

know each other well. Once people knew each other, they could become more

collaborative in the workplace.

IM3 suggested the workers that they apply mental filtering technique so that they

could lessen any potential relationship conflicts that might be triggered by emotional and

personal incompatibilities or disputes, anger, frustration, suspicion, distrust, or hostility

among team members through interactions with workers who might have different levels

of PD. IM3 said “when an executive from a high PD culture spoke something that

sounded like boasting, I advised the workers to try to ignore any phrases or words from

the talk and grasp only the essential words.” Motivating the multicultural workers would

be difficult if differences in worker mentality and cultures among the workers were not

recognized (Bebenroth & Hemmert, 2015; Bertoldi et al., 2015). The mental filter method

might be a useful skill to lessen potential relationship conflicts because the relationship

conflicts could be triggered by various emotional and personal feelings against each other

among the team (Medina, 2016).

IM6 also encouraged the workers to work in groups rather than to work in an

individual, isolated style typically seen in low IC cultures. Collectivistic workers

preferred belonging to groups because the group members would care for each member

in exchange for loyalty (Maali & Al-Attar, 2017). IM6 commented on some rationales to

appreciate the group style as opposed to an independent style and said, I tried to adjust

the American workers of the acquired firm in a highly individualistic culture rather than

the acquired Japanese workers because I personally felt that having workers as a team

and work together as opposed to

against each other would help foster team growth as opposed to individually for

me as a manager. I got rid of individual goals or individual rewards, such as the

employee of the week or employee of the month. Instead, I set team goals. If

teams met their overall team goals for both the Japanese and the American team

hitting their targets at the same time, all teams were rewarded with special

bonuses. This helped to get the American team [individualistic culture] on board

to work more as a group instead of trying to hit personal numbers and personal

quota.

IM6’s observation might be reasonable. The collective team performance could

improve if the team members had high levels of trust each other and low levels of team

faultlines and heterogeneity (Mach & Baruch, 2015).

IM7 also appreciated the tendency to work in groups that workers in a

collectivistic culture typically exhibited. IM7 commented on how an integration manager

could support the workers in an individualistic culture to work in groups as a team and

help each other to outperform individual goals. IM7 said “individuals who had similar

concerns or behavioral patterns in a certain way could relatively easy to form a team and

have frequent meetings together.” People in collectivistic cultures would perceive the

relationship between the employer and the employee in moral terms and preferred

satisfactory workplace conditions rather than individual interests (Park, 2016). A manager

supervising a combined workforce consisted of both collectivistic and individualistic

cultures might find it more adequate to manage by teamwork approach that could play a

vital role in forming a we-culture to which both individualistic and collectivistic workers

might be able to adjust (Blecking, 2015).

Relationship conflicts. Five (62.5%) participants raised the issues of complexity

in maintaining interpersonal relationships between acquired and acquiring firm workers

in association with different MF and LTO levels of the workers. IM7 shared his

perception that the acquired workers in the high LTO culture focused on building

relationships with executives from the acquiring firm and said “I guessed they did not

want to be left behind because the executives from the acquirer would almost decide their

future.” IM5 noted on a challenge in building relationships between different cultures,

and mentioned “when discussing the local business culture, the first thing that Japanese

workers usually talked about was the importance of practicing their relationship building

habit. But this is really not easy for an American executive to perform. It takes time.”

IM2 also mentioned,

I observed a great tendency that Japanese workers seemed to be treating the U.S.

workers higher in the organizational hierarchy. It seemed that the Japanese

workers spent about one year until they could start interacting frankly with the

U.S. colleagues. U.S. workers expected the Japanese workers to speak to each

other in equal stance from the beginning.

While short-term oriented managers would seek quick profits or business results

and would pay less attention to the importance of creating relationships with them

(Taylor & Zhou, 2019), workers in high LTO cultures were likely to prefer building

relationships with other stakeholders before starting to collaborate on joint projects

(Khlif, 2016; Taylor & Zhou, 2019). By creating a rapport beforehand, the stakeholders

in high LTO cultures tried to avoid potential relationship conflicts such as the dysfunction

relating to emotional and personal incompatibilities or disputes that might be subject to

anger, frustration, suspicion, distrust, and hostility among team members (Medina, 2016).

It might be necessary for the leader in a low LTO culture to modify mindset to focus on

building positive relationships with acquired workers to manage employee motivations in

the workplace (Jedin & Saad, 2016).

Some IMs noted that they needed to invest considerable time in building

relationships with acquired workers. IM5 argued that there was a challenge for a manager

from a low LTO and feminine culture in building relationships with the workers in a high

LTO and masculine culture in the same way as the workers in a high LTO and masculine

culture would naturally develop relationship with each other. IM5 commented “after

spending a tremendous effort in building a relationship with acquired workers in Japan,

they made me rather become aware of a strong sense of separation from them.” IMs

would need to be prepared to take plenty of time to understand and build up social

relationships with workers of their target firms in the high LTO cultures (Sinkovics et al.,

2015).

IM5 noted the importance of humility when initiating relationships with acquired

workers in a high LTO culture. To obtain trust from workers in a high LTO culture, IM5

emphasized the necessity of developing relationships with acquired workers. IM5 said,

You have to be willing almost to give up yourself and your family to spend much time

with local workers to develop relationships [after work]. You may be able to

do it temporarily as part of your international assignment. It is like playing the

role of an ordinary local worker in the host country as if you were fake local

personnel.

For cross-border acquisitions of targets in high LTO cultures, relationship

building with acquired workers was helpful because it positively associated with a

postmerger performance and could motivate staff to perform their tasks at maximum

levels (Y. Chen et al., 2016; Jedin & Saad, 2016).

IM3 reported that it took 3 years to shake hands with a high-ranking Japanese

businessperson after IM3 first met him. Investigating the value of building relationships

with target firms and its difficulties could be one of the first steps for an integration leader

to practice because building relationships with target firms would be a necessary process

for acquirers before achieving any significant progress toward cultural integrations

(Sinkovics et al., 2015). IM3, who belonged to a low MF culture in Norway, responded

regarding a challenge in building a relationship with an acquired worker in the high MF

culture from the United Kingdom, who displayed an overly proud attitude when

interacting with lower ranking workers in the workplace. The United Kingdom scored 66

whereas Norway scored 8 on the MF level (Hofstede, 2011), and might represent the

masculine and the feminine cultures, respectively. IM3 said,

The U.K. executive looked surprised when he first learned that he had to share a

room with other lower ranking colleagues and asked me to provide him with a

private room and to treat him in a more distinguished manner from others.

People in a low MF culture might not feel comfortable with overt power moves

and would not value status displays (Hofstede, 2015). Conversely, workers in a masculine

culture might seek status by winning in competitions or aligning themselves with

powerful winners such as the president or senior executives in an organization (Hofstede,

2015), which could cause challenges in keeping favorable relationships with less senior

workers in low MF cultures.

IM7 described an experience that acquired workers in a masculine culture

displayed behavior that they tended to approach and develop relationships with new

executives from the acquiring firm quickly to try to get new positions and often ignored

IM7’s supervision. Individuals in high PD cultures would be more motivated to get a

better position within an organization because of the hope for obtaining power (Purwanto,

2018), which could make the human resources management challenging for integration

managers in a low PD culture (Purwanto, 2018).

Highly masculine countries are often driven by shared dominant values, such as

clearly distinct gender roles (Andrijauskienė & Dumčiuvienė, 2017; Yildiz & Vural,

2019). IM8 described a conflict between a female manager from the acquiring firm and

the male subordinates from the acquired target in Japan. IM8 faced challenges when the

male workers often disregarded the female manager’s directions and tried to report to

IM8 directly and proposed business plans on their own. Table 6 is a summary of the

frequency of participant responses to different business practices and work styles.

Table 6

Business Practices and Working Styles (Frequency)

Participant Interview questions References

IM1 1, 2, 7, 8 9

IM2 4, 7, 9, 10 7

IM3 5, 9, 10 9 IM4 5, 6, 9 7

IM5 5, 6, 7, 10 20 IM6 5, 6, 7, 9, 10 14

IM7 5, 7, 8, 9, 10 14

IM8 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 12

Theme 3: Communication Styles

All (100%) participants responded regarding the problems related to different

styles of communications practiced among acquired workers in high PD, high UA, and

low IC cultures. Eight (100%) participants identified barriers that might be discouraging

open communications between acquired workers in high PD cultures and acquiring firm

managers related to overly concerned organizational hierarchies. Six (75%) participants

pointed out differences in the level of detail in communications between acquired

workers in high UA cultures and acquiring firm workers. Differences in national cultures

between workers could create a significant impact on communications in the workplace

and would generate various challenges for an integration leader to manage the diverse

workforces (Caiazza, 2016). The leader of an acquiring firm could enhance the active

team collaborations and performance if the leader established trust and clear

communications among the diverse work teams (Tran et al., 2016).

Keen awareness of hierarchies. Three participants (37.5%) shared challenges

related to tacit behaviors that their acquired workers in the high PD cultures displayed in

workplace communications, which often caused miscommunications, delayed work

progress, and slow decisions. IM6, who had managed integration of acquired Japanese

workers and acquiring firm workers in the United States, was not able to directly

communicate with core members of the Japanese work team except for a designated

contact point person of the same level as IM6. IM6 said “I had to email the manager of

the team in Japan, who then relayed the message to the Japanese workers I wanted to talk

to.” IM6 was extremely frustrated by the indirect email communication habit practiced at

the target side and said,

If I wanted to talk to the Japanese subordinates, essentially, I had to waste my

time to email to the manager as a regular contact point of the Japanese team.

Similarly, if I wanted to talk to the senior manager of the manager, I had to email

to the manager to reach out to the senior manager, which seemed inefficient in our

[American] culture.

To facilitate the email communications with acquired workers in Japan without

stepping through a contact point, IM6 discussed with members in Japan and got a

consensus in setting up an email rule between IM6 and the acquired workers, thereby

IM6 and the Japanese subordinates could directly communicate through email as long as

the same ranking person in the target had to be carbon copied (cc’d) at all times. IM6

said,

We made the point clear [with Japanese workers] that it was okay to communicate

well beyond your rank essentially, so I could email to communicate with the

manager [of the Japanese contact point] and likewise, the Japanese subordinates

could email me with the only caveat being that the person who is within your

same rank or status must get cc’d at all times. After this [consensus], the frictions

between our teams had dissolved with the communication because now we had

essentially a set of rules to follow in our communication.

IM6 noted “those were good strategies and gave everyone a good feeling.” The

employees might perceive it as unethical if the manager coerced workers to copy

supervisors with copying as a control mechanism for transparency (Haesevoets et al.,

2019). By including the supervisors in the cc line, however, employees usually felt

trusted (Haesevoets et al., 2019).

IM2 also shared a challenge experienced when integrating acquired Japanese

workers into a U.S. acquirer. IM2 said “while the American workers expected Japanese

workers to speak to each other with equal emphasis, it took more than a year for the

Japanese workers to get used to the communication style in the United States.”

Subordinates in the higher PD culture would not speak proactively when their manager

was present so that they allowed the manager to keep talking and controlling the

conversation even if an anticipated result might be a conflict with the interest of

themselves with low power (Y. Chang et al., 2015; Park et al., 2019) because it might be

an indication of their acceptance of the manager’s power (Hofstede, 2001, 2011).

Haspeslagh and Jemison (1991) suggested that an integration manager should motivate

acquired workers to acculturate themselves with philosophies and policies of the

acquirer’s cultures. IM2 found it challenging to acculturate the Japanese workers with

American cultures. IM2 observed that the acquired Japanese workers, including both

managers and employees, viewed “the workers of the acquirer as stronger and higher in

the hierarchy” and appeared to be willing to “accept acquirer’s culture” but “hesitant to

practice upfront communication at the equal level.” In a high PD culture, subordinates are

expected to be told what to do by the supervisor (Hofstede, 2011).

Regarding the keen awareness of hierarchy of the Japanese acquired workers, IM4

also observed that “less senior staff from Japan usually did not speak,” when having

meetings with Japanese workers. IM4 reported “the most senior person typically spoke

during the meeting or even dominated the conversation from the Japanese side.”

Referring to the situation when a group comprised of the U.S. and the Japanese

businesspeople had a joint meeting and discussed the tasks they were going to

collaborate, IM4 commented on a challenge and said,

In a U.S. organization, when the CEO and junior employees join a meeting with

people from another organization, the junior employees would also speak as much

as the CEO would. The U.S. based employees may usually assume the meeting

will progress as an open conversation about the assignments. However, the

Japanese manager may have a different scenario in mind expecting the U.S. based

employees to keep listening to the manager to understand the directions to follow.

As IM4 mentioned, IM4’s company value statement noted “we address issues

objectively, using facts and constructive feedback in a work atmosphere where we do not

fear open discussion or questions.”

Regarding the acquired managers, IM6 described the challenge as “most vice

presidents or directors who came from the acquired target in Japan steeped in their

cultures and tended to have few discussions with subordinates in the acquiring

organization in the United States.” Individuals in the United States have a greater

inclination toward a desire for equal treatment and are uncomfortable with inequality in

the organization or society (Curtis et al., 2016; Simmons et al., 2019). As a result, both

the IM of the acquiring firm in a low PD culture and the leader from the target in a high

PD culture might embarrass each other leading to less productive discussions, causing

delays in decision-making or misunderstanding about the project because of the different

levels of equality among the workers or the managers’ authoritative powers over their

subordinates (Zhang & Oczkowski, 2016).

To improve the way the executives and the workers of the acquirer in the United

States and the target in Japan communicate efficiently, IM4 said “both managers and

subordinates should be educated on some cultural nuances. An integration leader should

help managers understand cultural differences and how to communicate effectively with

their subordinates.” Leaders of an acquiring organization might need to train themselves

for specific periods by living in the host countries to build positive relationships with

local workers and other stakeholders and adapt to local cultures (Tusar et al., 2016). The

greater the cultural distance between the host and the home countries, the more effective

the cross-cultural training could be if managers of both the acquirer and the target

participated (Lawson & Shepherd, 2019). During the integration, IM6 conducted a

program through which the managers from both the acquirer and the target sides

exchanged. IM4 described,

We assigned some U.S. based managers from the acquiring company and

Japanese acquired managers from the target to relocate to the reciprocal countries

and join work teams. Some employees playing critical roles in the acquirer in the

United States were also relocated to Japan for a couple of years. Likewise, some

employees from the target in Japan were invited to join some teams in the

acquirer in the United States to understand better how the acquiring organization

was operating. These foreign members could play the role of seeding staff who

had been transferred from one organization into the other organization to help

their teammates to get used to the different cultures and practices.

By providing the managers with practical work experiences in the reciprocal

countries, according to IM4, the managers from both organizations became “the liaisons

between the acquirer and the target to bridge communications gaps in between.” The

success of joint business operations relies heavily on relationships developed between the

two organizations, which can be better maintained by liaisons who are skilled in

interacting between the two nationalities (Taylor & Zhou, 2019).

IM4 also shared knowledge of the use of informal mentors for acquired workers.

IM4 provided to newly acquired workers from Japan with appointed executives as

mentors assigned from the acquirer in the United States to answer questions the new staff

had to help the new staff understand the acquirer’s decision process. Mentors could guide

their mentees through struggles by sharing their knowledge and personal experiences

(Turner-Moffatt, 2019). IM4 said “we needed to align the cultures of the U.S. mentors

with those of the target as well. Knowing the cultures of both acquirer and the target,

mentors could help bridge various cultural differences in between.” IM4 told that the

mentors and the new executives from the acquired firm sometimes held informal

meetings to talk about personal concerns, issues, challenges, different ideas, or ways of

solving problems by offline. IM4 said “in an informal meeting, the new executives and

the mentors built more trust and freely discussed how things should be done in an

environment where senior management was not present.” Adopting a mentorship

program in worker education could be beneficial not only for mentees but also for

mentors and the organization so that the mentorship program could open the possibility of

cross-departmental collaborations and building stronger leaders (Turner-Moffatt,

2019).

Differences in detail level of information and speed of decision-making. Five

(62.5%) participants noted the challenges associated with different levels of detail of

information expected to be covered in communications between the acquired workers in

high UA cultures and the acquiring firm workers. Miscommunications may result in

distrust among diverse stakeholders that could inhibit the adequate flow of information

and exchange of knowledge across the teams in an organization (M. Hu & Ngo, 2017).

IM2 observed,

Japanese workers from the target expected precise and detailed instructions on

how to carry out tasks, whereas the American workers from headquarters spoke

about outcomes or the milestones of the activities and left the process or

methodologies how to execute the tasks to the workers.

IM4 also commented “acquired subordinates in Japan tended to expect their

managers to provide clear, detailed instructions or directions when they worked on

projects.” Conversely, IM4 said that the managers of the acquirer in the United States

“may want to give some freedom to the employees to think about how they wish to

accomplish the tasks rather than to give precise instructions on how the tasks should be

handled.” Workers in a high PD culture expect managers to tell subordinates what to do

(Hofstede, 2011) and were more likely to incorporate themselves into the hierarchies and

might act more on behalf of the supervisors and prioritize in accepting and following

supervisors’ behaviors and directions (Park, 2016; Simmons et al., 2019).

IM8 shared the experience regarding the challenges in responding to repetitive

questions from acquired workers in high UA cultures seeking detailed instructions, which

frequently caused delayed decisions to start new joint projects, and said, I was trying to

take on business operations in Japan, and when I basically presented a high level

presentation [of a business plan to the local workers in Japan], the Japanese workers

reacted by saying that they wished more information as if they were asking me to produce

a 100-page document.

Uncertainties in communications might not be a severe problem for organizations

in low UA cultures (Garcia et al., 2014). However, the managers in high UA cultures

were generally unwilling to undertake a new task and demanded clarity and structure

(Hofstede, 2011) because they tended to feel threatened if the result of the task was not

certain (C. J. Chang et al., 2016).

IM4 also shared its observation that the workers in a high UA culture tended to

ask the same questions repetitively over and over again. IM4 described a typical issue

related to the acquired Japanese workers’ cautiousness and habit of asking repetitive

questions connected to overly concerned attitude for clarity and said,

Japanese partners seemed to very cautious in making any commitments or

decisions regarding how to proceed with a proposed joint venture business, which

often led to slow decisions. To discuss new business proposals with Japanese

partners, I frequently traveled to Japan for one week to meet with stakeholders in

the local market every month. Each time I had a meeting, I found that most of the

discussions with the Japanese counterparts turned out to be the rehashing of the

talks on the same details or questions we discussed in the previous meetings.

IM4 illustrated why the slow decision-making habit displayed by the Japanese

workers was problematic and said,

Japanese stakeholders did not reach consensus regarding the joint venture project

after spending 18 months of discussions, which led board members back in the

United States to lose patience. Japanese businesspeople generally display

difficulty in making decisions even if all the necessary data around the project are

available to everyone in the project, including the Japanese stakeholders, so that

they can always check and analyze. Executives in the United States examine the

available data and decide to move on to the next step. For a semiconductor

company which is in a highly dynamic, fast-growing high tech sector, it is

disastrous if it takes a longer time in making business decisions.

If businesspeople do not understand their counterpart’s tendencies, it can lead to

tense situations (Taylor & Zhou, 2019). Leaders in low UA cultures need to strategize

how to keep moving forward with a joint project with workers from acquired

organizations in high UA cultures. People in a high UA culture would feel the difference

is dangerous and tried to avoid uncertainties (Curtis et al., 2016). Workers in high UA

cultures necessitate high degrees of clarity in the information they use to assess potential

risks of the projects (Hofstede, 2011).

IM4 took action to “resolve issues related to acquired Japanese workers’ slow

decision-making habits.” IM4 explained,

We identified some important individuals, not executives, from the target in

Japan, who could adapt more to the acquirer’s decision-making style and the

operating style. We brought these key individuals to the acquirer and integrated

into some work teams at the acquirer for one to two years to reinforce some of the

characteristics and attributes useful to work with employees at the acquirer in the

United States. Then, after spending a couple of years, these Japanese key

individuals were moved back to the target side and promoted as supervisors with

more responsibilities and more critical roles than before. These key individuals

could also distribute the lessons they learned and the relationships they built

during their terms at the acquirer throughout the target.

The acquirer and the target should work closely to enhance the overall M&A

performance and synergy creation by learning and exchanging knowledge on processes

and resources (Sinkovics et al., 2015). Intracompany worker exchange might be useful in

improving cross-border acquisition performance (Ahammad et al., 2016), particularly for

cross-border M&As with targets in high context cultures that are likely to encompass tacit

knowledge (Nishinaka et al., 2015). The IM should consider an expatriate program for

individuals functioning in essential positions of the target’s international operations to

become adapted to the acquirer’s culture to avoid potential harm to the organization and

to disseminate knowledge to target (Taylor & Zhou, 2019).

IM3 shared an experience when IM3 discovered a taciturn disposition exhibited

by acquired subordinates from a high UA culture when they had a meeting with a

manager. IM3 noted that the acquired Polish subordinates tended to say “Yes” to most of

the questions that IM3 asked regarding whether or not the workers understood the given

tasks even though they might have been unsure about some parts of the instructions.

Miscommunications might lead to task and process conflicts with culturally different

workers from an acquiring firm (Korovyakovskaya & Chong, 2015). IM3 said “the

worker should be aware that the Norwegian communication style might not be as detailed

as Polish workers might expect,” and IM3 recognized that the subordinates’ reaction was

probably “a polite way of answering,” and resolved the potential miscommunications

with the Polish worker by “asking the Polish worker to repeat what I said.” To supervise

the multicultural workforce, taking active steps to prevent miscommunication would be

necessary (Korovyakovskaya & Chong, 2015).

IM5 discovered one positive aspect of the acquired Japanese worker’s tendency to

emphasize precisions and said “once the manager provided detailed enough information,

the acquired workers in high UA cultures generally completed the tasks as precisely to

the instructions as possible and fast.” IM5 explained “you will need to lay out everything

that has to be done, and if you input all the information, they (acquired workers in Japan)

executed tasks better and more thoroughly than any American might do.” IM5 considered

that the acquired workers in a high UA culture “might want to gain trust from the

acquiring firm managers by showing how they were precise and loyal to the manager.”

Employees’ trust in the acquired firm can be a sign of a high level of acceptance of the

integration changes, firm intentions to stay in the job, and a willingness to cooperate with

the acquiring firm (Ai & Tan, 2017). Trust was a critical factor for effective team

collaborations and performance of the diverse work teams, and the leader should assume

that the team performance might be low if a level of trust among teammates were low

(Browne et al., 2016; Tran et al., 2016). Table 7 shows the frequency of participants’

responses regarding challenges and strategies related to communications styles.

Table 7

Communication Styles (Frequency)

Participant Interview questions References

IM1 2, 8 4

IM2 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 9

IM3 1, 2, 3, 4 6

IM4 1, 2, 3, 4 9

IM5 2, 3 10

IM6 1, 2, 3 10

IM7 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 10

IM8 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 17

Applications to Professional Practice

This doctoral study included an exploration of core knowledge and skills

necessary for business leaders to manage postacquisition diverse workforce integrations

in the ICT industries in low context cultures in North America and Europe that acquired

targets in high context cultures in Asia; the findings could also apply to various

organizations in other industries. The findings of the study included three themes: (a)

workplace transparencies, (b) business practices and working styles, and (c)

communications styles. For the challenges of cultural integration, the findings indicated

three kinds of national cultural differences responsible for causing difficulties for leaders

of acquiring firms to integrate acquired foreign workforce, related to workplace

transparencies, business practices and work styles, and communication styles. For the

strategies to mitigate many of the integration challenges that the participants identified,

various proactive approaches were found useful and necessary for integration managers

to carry out during the postacquisition integration phase. The approaches that successful

IMs had implemented could be grouped into two major categories, including cultural

understanding educational programs for newly combined diverse workforce and

relationship building between the two workforces from the acquirer and the target.

While acquiring firms were rational in making decisions, workers of acquired

targets exhibited rather emotional behaviors (Moilanen, 2016). Any employees possessed

unique values, symbols, statements, rules, education system, political governance,

national cultures, family, and friends that influenced the development of individuals

(Sprajc & Podbregar, 2016). Multicultural management would be a pivotal role for the

business leader responsible for postacquisition integrations because the management of

the acquiring firm tended to take the lead in identifying the change process and operating

the organization newly created after the completion of the cross-border acquisition

(Moilanen, 2016).

For challenges related to workplace transparencies, previous researchers have

noted that transparencies might result in a major cause for collaboration failure, as

transparency was a foundation of workplace ethics and a key to maintaining staff

relationships (Shum et al., 2019). Worker transparency involves behaviors such as

sharing of information, being authentic and open, reasoning behind decisions, and being

truthful (Shum et al., 2019) and is closely connected to differences in PD, UA, MF, and

IC levels (Maali & Al-Attar, 2017). Effective integration management requires an

understanding of behavioral differences in workplace transparencies among the workers

of the host country and the home country because it could enable the identification and

potential reduction in worker disharmony (Shum et al., 2019).

As for challenges connected to business practices and work styles, integration

leaders are suggested to be mindful of different levels of MF, IC, and LTO between the

workers of acquired and acquiring firms. Disagreements in business practices and work

styles could cause conflicts in tasks, processes, and relationships among culturally diverse

workforce and could even lead to tense situation (Korovyakovskaya & Chong,

2015; Taylor & Zhou, 2019). Regarding the challenges related to different

communication styles, leaders are advised to pay attention to different levels of PD, UA,

and IC between the acquirer and acquired workers. Tran et al. (2016) noted that a lack of

trust among the workers due to miscommunication would be a substantial barrier for

active team collaborations and performance in a diverse workforce.

The findings of the study also included practical approaches the IMs used to

reconcile the challenges they faced during the integration stages, which consisted of

cultural understanding programs and building favorable relationships with acquired

foreign workers. Mutually understanding national cultural differences, based on all

national cultural dimensions, including PD, UA, MF, IC, and LTO, is key to the

achievement of multicultural worker integration after the cross-border acquisition

(Haspeslagh & Jemison, 1991; Lawson & Shepherd, 2019; Taylor & Zhou, 2019).

Kaleramna et al. (2019) asserted that the leader of a multicultural organization should

provide merged workers with cultural training in the early phase of the postacquisition

integration.

In terms of relationship building between the acquired and the acquiring firm

workes, Sinkovics et al. (2015) stated that the IM should prioritize on development of

robust relationships with acquired workers before making significant progress toward

collaborations if the acquired workers belonged to a high LTO culture. The people in a

high LTO culture were likely to cherish relationships with other stakeholders to secure

strong ties with them in the future (Khlif, 2016). The best practices found in this study

should encourage internationally merged organizations to take more of a strategic view

when dealing with multicultural worker integration involving high and low context

national cultures.

Implications for Social Change

The implications for positive social change are numerous, considering a loss of 20

billion to 40 billion dollars occurs in the ICT industry annually for failed cross-border

acquisitions or divested acquired targets, representing significant damage to ICT

businesses (Cui et al., 2016; Zaks, 2016). The implication for positive social change

includes potential improvement in human relationships across the countries that have

distinct ethnic groups and diverse cultures by understanding and dissemination of

crosscultural knowledge, diversified business practices, and various communication

norms through business-to-business or business-to-consumer interactions in the societies.

Today, an international organization is an ethnic salad in which various cultures are

blended yet distinct (G. Fusch, Fusch, Booker, & Fusch, 2016). By enhancing the success

rate of postacquisition integrations of a diverse workforce, leaders’ competencies gained

from experience to collaborate with workers in different cultures diffuse among the

industry across the borders.

This study also has the potential to provide positive social change for individuals,

the community, and society by assisting researchers in analyzing how people can foster

adopting spillovers of new technologies, methodologies, social systems, or philosophies

between the countries of acquirers and foreign targets (Liang, 2017; Muqiang et al.,

2017), which could benefit social development. Business managers can also improve

their organization’s international competitiveness by focusing more on how the

organization uses cross-cultural knowledge to understand why expected synergies may or

may not be generated through the cross-border M&As (Ahammad et al., 2016). As the

community becomes more attractive and accessible for foreign businesses or

multinational corporations to enter, it contributes to diversifying the ways of living and

improves the quality of life for individuals who reside in the community.

Recommendations for Action

The cross-cultural integration managers interviewed for this study faced

challenges in conducting the cultural integration of diverse workforce after closing the

cross-border M&A deals. Each integration manager shared one’s approach to mitigate

negative impacts and reinforce positive outcomes resulted from integrating acquired

foreign workers into acquiring firms. As Moilanen (2016) demonstrated, the manager of

an acquiring firm tended to lead in the operation of a newly created organization and to

take the ultimate responsibility to identify change processes for consolidations. All

stakeholders should receive cultural awareness training to increase the potential for

positive outcomes. The training program should include one on one meetings,

intracompany worker transfer, and cross-functional team meetings to discuss and share

information on different business practices and communication styles.

I discovered during the interviews that the training would help improve results if

workers of both acquirer and target from all levels participated. Haspeslagh and Jemison

(1991), Lawson and Shepherd (2019), and Taylor and Zhou (2019) asserted cross-cultural

training should be provided to all individuals of both acquirers and foreign targets in

cross-border acquisitions covering differences between high and low context cultures and

the appropriate behaviors that are needed to avoid potential harm to the organization. All

of the cross-cultural integration managers interviewed in this study emphasized the need

for making upfront conversations and exchanging opinions with acquired workers taking

into account the differences in behaviors between high and low context cultures.

Postacquisition cross-cultural integration managers should focus on building and

maintaining peaceful relationships with acquired foreign workers. To function effectively

as an organization, an employer should deal with soft issues such as culture and

communications (Moilanen, 2016; Sprajc & Podbregar, 2016). The relationships should

be a long-term basis and serve as a stimulus for both the acquirer to the target to identify

each other’s valuable aspects and to acknowledge different cultures rather than forcing

either side to acculture. Khlif (2016) stated acquiring an organization should develop

healthy relationships with acquired workers before attempting to make any significant

movements toward firm combination because the people in a high context culture would

focus on building a relationship with other stakeholders as the first step toward business

collaborations.

To disseminate this knowledge, I will provide the results of the study to LinkedIn

groups, such as Mergers and Acquisitions Professionals (MAP), International Consular

Officers Forum, Business in Japan from the United States, European Union, Canada and

Oceania, Japan Market Entry Association, Harvard Business Review, International Trade

Network, International Business, Business in Japan, and Bilingual Workforce in Japan,

government organizations, including Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO),

Commercial sections of embassies of the United States, Canada, Norway, France, and the

United Kingdom, and the participants. I will publish the study by the processes required

to complete the Walden program, which will allow it to be accessed anywhere in the

world. The strategies uncovered during this study should be beneficial to cross-cultural

integration managers on their first assignment or veteran IMs seeking to implement

process improvement efforts. The important themes presented in this study could improve

cross-cultural integration managers’ leadership skills with their team members.

Recommendations for Further Research

In this qualitative multiple case study, the purposeful sampling method to select

participants was the first limitation. The recommendation to reach out to more varieties of

a sample of participants, which would include numerous stakeholders (i.e., executives,

expatriates, team members) and multiple subsectors (i.e., cybersecurity, digital media,

automotive information, entertainment, manufacturing, robotics, in addition to

semiconductor, and software), would enable the application of the study findings to the

larger population of global ICT cross-border M&As. During this study, data saturation

was attained after interviewing eight participants from four Western countries (the United

States, Canada, France, and Norway). No further participants would be needed to include

in the study as indicated by redundancy or data replication. The findings from this study

expand the understanding of core knowledge and competencies necessary for

crosscultural worker integration management in the private sector, which may increase

success rates of cross-border M&As and gain practical strategies to create a collaborative

multicultural workforce, promoting to develop competitive advantages for global

competitions and increasing profitability.

The second limitation of this study was the participants’ level of knowledge of the

theory used in the study, Hofstede’s (2001) five dimensions of national culture theory.

Categorizing the collected data into each of the five dimensions could raise concern for

researchers interested in investigating multicultural management challenges and strategies

connected more specific to given dimensions of the national cultures covered in

Hofstede’s theory. As this study addressed all five dimensions of national cultures,

targeting to introduce one of the first attempts to relate the cultural integration challenges

to national cultural differences, future research must focus on selected dimensions of

national cultures covered or not covered in Hofstede’s theory. The third limitation of this

study was that not all the national cultural indices shown by Hofstede were agreed by all

researchers or participants. Future research based on other theories or conceptual

frameworks such as the global leadership and organizational behavior effectiveness

(GLOBE) index may strengthen the study for researchers seeking to deepen the

knowledge.

This study was derived from a qualitative research method with a multiple case

study design. Other methodologies and designs, such as mixed method, may be used to

discover relationships between specific cultural integration challenges and cultural

dimensions at the same time explore cases. The mixed-method study should be

considered for more in-depth research on strategies and knowledge necessary for post-

M&A multicultural worker integration management.

Reflections

My motivation to conduct this study was to explore strategies that global business

leaders used to manage multicultural environments mixed with different national cultures

where leaders’ values might not be applicable to everyone. I chose cross-border M&As as

the platform to identify challenges and applied strategies when leaders supervised their

acquired foreign workers. To ensure the challenges discovered from interviews were

related to national cultural differences between acquires targets, I used Hofstede’s (2001)

five dimensions of national culture theory to select ideal cases representing the

crossborder M&As that took place between culturally distant organizations.

While I proceeded with the literature review and data collection, I was convinced

the cross-border M&A was an excellent choice for the topic yet challenging to find

participants, especially the cases that acquirers were in low context cultures, and the

targets were in high context cultures. During the interviews, I found every participant

enthusiastic in responding to interview questions. I often heard the participants say they

were thrilled to talk about their experience using the five cultural dimensions as guidance

to recall and recognized the interview as an opportunity to change their perceptions on

different behaviors of the people who came from other cultures.

Participants’ commitment to providing professional and private experience was

inspirational. I am grateful for having the opportunity to contribute to enhancing the

participants’ awareness of the importance of cultural integration in association with

national cultures. It was also a great opportunity that I could develop many enduring

relationships with students and faculty from all over the world.

Conclusion

To achieve creating value following the cross-border M&A, the business leader

should start building relationships with acquired workers before attempting to make any

significant movements (Khlif, 2016). The study findings revealed various practical

knowledge and competencies that successful integration managers used, which provide

potential learning and leadership for others. Major lessons I discovered were (a)

workplace transparency, (b) business practices and working styles, (c) communication

styles, (d) cross-cultural education, and (d) relationship building. All these lessons

suggest that leaders of acquirers should (a) know the national cultural differences, (b)

compromise with the differences as national cultures cannot be changed, (c) let targets

change how they practice business, and finally (d) be honest and discuss frankly with

acquired foreign workers about acquirer’s needs to keep favorable relationships with the

acquired workers. Based on these findings, global business leaders could find strategies to

start and improve postacquisition multicultural integration management policies and

education programs to address cultural clash issues.

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Strategies for Cultural Integration Following Cross-Border Mergers and Acquisitions

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