“You will not be successful if you tell a Brazilian: now you will need to become a German” A case study of to what extent a company’s corporate culture implementation strategies can assist in the integration process of a recently acquired company

Abstract

When integrating a cross-border acquisition many features of the acquiring company will commonly be implemented into the acquired company, one being corporate culture. Historically it has been shown that differing organisational cultures could be detrimental to the success of the acquisition. The thesis’ aim has been to investigate to what extent an acquiring foreign company’s corporate culture implementation strategies has assisted in the integration process of a recently acquired company. The research has been conducted as a qualitative case study with a total of 23 respondents. Three in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with managers that are all working with M&A and integration at different levels throughout a hierarchical organisational structure. A structured interview of 20 employees within the acquired foreign firm also occurred. The empirical data was analysed through an analytical framework of recognised and applicable theories. The gathered data showed inconsistencies in the strategies perceived by the practitioners, but the supposed strategy communicated towards the acquired company’s management also allowed for local adaptation. This, however, ultimately seems to have been the goal of the strategy. The strategy implementation resulted in a somewhat smooth acculturation into the acquiring company as confirmed by the structured interview. The conclusion of the thesis indicated that a corporate culture implementation strategy extensively can assist in the integration process, if the strategy is formulated in an adaptive and efficient manner. Lastly, the practical implementations were in line with the conclusion, and the theoretical implementations included propositions to the development of existing theories.