Multiplied cultures and market information communication behaviours
多元化文化因素與市場信息溝通行為
Student thesis: Doctoral Thesis
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Award date | 2 Oct 2008 |
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Permanent Link | https://scholars.cityu.edu.hk/en/theses/theses(2c54ec52-9907-4480-a6ee-cefeae988d29).html |
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Other link(s) | Links |
Abstract
After an international merger and acquisition, two or more national cultures and
organizational cultures coexist in the newly-created company. Facing the multiplied
cultural settings, the company consciously or unconsciously adopts some crosscultural
integration strategy. Prior research shows that under different cultural
cross-cultural integrations, the communication behaviours of newly-created
company’s management and staff may display some variations along with their
cultural backgrounds. This study aims to examine:
1) The respective impact of strategic leadership type and organizational culture upon
the acquiring company’s adoption of cross-cultural integration strategy;
2) Multiplied cultures’ impacts upon market information behaviours under two
different cross-cultural integration strategies.
Drawing on prior studies by Choo (1998), Hofstede (1980, 1997), and Nahavandi and
Malekzadeh(1988), among many others, this study formulated its own theoretical
framework and proposed 18 hypotheses. In the hypothesized relationships, the
independent variables are national culture, strategic leadership type and organizational
culture, and the dependent variables include cross-cultural integration strategies and
four market information communication behaviours. To operationalize these
independent and dependent variables, this study selected power distance, uncertainty
avoidance and high-/low- context to represent national culture, and chose
organizational strength and organizational adaptability to represent organizational
culture Cross-cultural integration strategy was operationalized as composing of two
alternatives—centralization and decentralization. Market information communication
behaviours were specified as information needs, information acquisition, information
use and information sharing.
To test the 18 pairs of hypothesized relationship, both quantitative and qualitative
methods were applied. The data came from two cases of merger and acquisition
between one indigenous Chinese company SBK and two French multinationals
Rhomson and Alcotol.The quantitative data was collected through a survey to 800
respondents working at the two newly-created companies and their parent company
SBK Group. The qualitative data was obtained through interviews, media coverage,
SBK website information, corporate documents and observation. After a data
screening process, 386 questionnaires were identified as valid and put into calculation
with SPSS. The statistical techniques that were employed include: Logistic
Regression, MANOVA, t-test and Bi-Variate Correlation. With a comprehensive
analysis of the quantitative results and qualitative information, this study achieved
nine findings. The three major ones include:
Firstly, the role of either strategic leadership type or organizational culture is limited
in the acquiring company’s choice of cross-cultural integration strategy;
Secondly, there is an influence pattern of multiplied cultures upon communication
behaviours under two different cross-cultural integration strategies. That is,
organizational culture prevails over national culture in affecting market information
communication behaviours under a centralized cross-cultural integration strategy,
whereas national culture prevails over organizational culture under a decentralized
cross-cultural integration strategy.
Thirdly, under a centralized cross-cultural integration strategy, organizational culture
is sometimes the most salient cultural factor in exercising its influence upon each of
the four communication behaviours, whereas under a decentralized integration
strategy, national culture is always the most salient cultural influence factor.
Besides the aforementioned findings, this study also identified two missing links
between culture and company performance after international mergers and
acquisitions. These two links are: market information communication behaviours and
decision quality or saleability of products/services developed.
In conclusion, this study discussed both the academic and business implication of this
research. The potential limitations of this study and suggested future research are also
discussed.
- Management, International business enterprises, Corporate culture, Cross-cultural studies, Intercultural communication, Multiculturalism