a narrative approach to the study of international acquisitions

Most studies of mergers and acquisitions have a managerial tilt and are founded on short visits to the companies investigated. This essay is based on a longitudinal study of a company that experiences a series of international acquisitions, giving voice to a wide range of organizational actors at different hierarchical levels, interviewed at different points of time over a period of six years. The collected narrative interviews are viewed as retrospective interpretations of change processes in the acquired company, made by organizational actors as parts of the plots they are continually constructing and revising to make sense of the course of organizational actions and events. Greimas’ actantial model is used to systematize the different plots that can be seen as results of both individual and collective processes of selection, hierarchization and sequencing of organizational actions and events. It is argued that a narrative approach is well suited to clarify changing patterns of identification and justification and to display different modes of storytelling. The narratological analyses moreover illustrate that even central actors within an acquired company often have such different work-views and world-views that it may be problematic or even counterproductive if upper-level management introduces corporate storytelling through conscious efforts without any negotiation of the different versions of stories told by the employees

A Qualitative Case Study

Previous research tends to overemphasize frictions, cultural clashes and communication breakdowns in virtual teams. The author aims at exploring positive aspects of cross-cultural collaboration and identifying some of the conditions underlying trust-building, employee motivation and team effectiveness. Whereas much research on virtual teams has taken its point of departure in Western MNCs and primarily addressed headquarter concerns, this case study of a Danish MNC´s Indian R & D site gives voice to Indian managers and employees and explores through semi-structured interviews and observations how they perceive communication and collaboration within multinational and multicultural R & D teams, and how they try to find common ground. Based on the interviews accounts, there are several enablers of virtual team collaboration: advanced information and communication technology facilitated virtual communication, and high English-language proficiency among the engineers at different R & D sites made dialogue and knowledge exchange feasible. Moreover, team members shared a strong professional identity as engineers and technicians, and they displayed a strong identification with the MNC, a world leader in the wind power industry. Perceived national differences in leadership and communication style played a minor role, maybe because the majority of Indian managers and employees had previous experience working in other Western MNCs. Some of the Indian managers and employees were even able to act as boundary-spanners between headquarters and the Indian R&D site due to their study and work experiences in other business environments. Culture courses that introduced the Danish and Indian team members to a North European communication and management style, and to an Indian respectively, were introduced on the initiative of the Danish managing director, who - in contrast to the HR department - recognized the importance of facilitating the virtual teamwork through cultural awareness training. Suggestions for further cultural learning processes are given

Chinese and Expatriate Accounts

The purpose of this article is to explore how Chinese and expatriate managers, working in subsidiaries of five MNCs, communicate and collaborate, what kind of cultural encounters they talk about and give prominence to in their accounts of critical incidents, how they reflect upon them/ explain them, and how they cope with perceived similarities and differences to improve cross-cultural communication and collaboration within a global organization. Using an inductive qualitative methodology and thematic analysis, the study draws on indepth narrative interviews with 29 expatriate and 39 Chinese managers and experts. The specific value of this paper is that it explores a hitherto under-researched issue and provides insight into well-educated expatriate and Chinese managers´ accounts of how they perceive themselves and others in a multicultural work context. In both groups we find widely traveled, flexible and open-minded people, who are ready and have the capabilities to conduct cross-cultural leadership

Intercultural communication studies : past paradigms and future research

W artykule zaprezentowano przegląd badań z zakresu komunikacji międzykulturowej, opublikowanych w czasopismach naukowych w ostatniej dekadzie. Dodatkowo wprowadzono podejście jakościowe do badania kulturowych doświadczeń i procesów uczenia się w kontekście organizacyjnym, określane w literaturze jako badanie narracyjne. Proponujemy, by podejście narracyjne zostało wykorzystane w badaniach nad komunikacją międzykulturową, gdyż oferuje narzędzia dające dostęp do sposobów, w jakie uczestnicy komunikacji opowiadają o swoich międzykulturowych doświadczeniach, do refleksji na ich temat, więc metoda narracyjna umożliwia ich głębsze zrozumienie. Proces opowiadania historii daje narratorowi okazję (a) na nowo przeżyć (między)kulturowe doświadczenia, (b) nadać znaczenie tym doświadczeniom, a także (c) zrozumieć obecne i przeszłe potrzeby psychologiczne, sposoby postrzegania siebie i odmiennych kulturowo osób, jak również oczekiwania względem kontaktów z nimi. Analiza opowieści o ważnych z punktu widzenia narratora doświadczeniach kulturowych pozwala badaczowi uzyskać lepszy wgląd w proces komunikacji międzykulturowej, a narratorowi daje szansę zrozumienia przeszłych doświadczeń, konstruowania własnej tożsamości i wzmocnienia procesu kulturowego uczenia się.The article gives an overview of past and present intercultural communication studies based on a review of journal articles from the last decade. It also introduces a qualitative approach to studying cultural encounters and learning processes in organizations through narrative inquiry and narrative analysis. We propose that this narrative approach should be moved closer to the intercultural communication realm because it may serve as a tool for getting access to and achieving an understanding of how culturally diverse individuals tell about and reflect upon cultural encounters. The process of storytelling allows narrators to (a) re-experience and reflect on their (inter)cultural encounters, (b) give sense to those experiences, and (c) make sense of their current and previous psychological needs, perceptions of and expectations toward contacts with cultural Others. Analysis of stories about critical cultural encounters in a specific context allows the researcher to gain deeper insight into the process of intercultural communication whereby individuals make sense of challenging cultural experiences and construct their identity and potentially engage in cultural learning processes

a case study

This paper is based on an explorative case study of all.department e-mails that were sent on the Intranet of a Danish university department. Following a social constructionist approach, our analysis assumes that language use shapes relations, identities, and representations. We thus investigate which social relations are expressed and constructed in the e-mail discourse and how the organizational world of the department is represented in the all.department e-mails. Our analyses of the e-mails show that the managerial voices are dominant as well as the perception of e-mail communication as a tool of information transmission. However, a few e-mails sent by employees without specific organizational functions differ significantly from the "managerial" mails. In these mails employee voices articulate a latent and unfulfilled need for a community and a forum for dialogue. The usage of the all.department e-mail communication is also related to the ongoing change of managing university departments in Denmark

Developing Responsible Leaders and Employees in a Multinational BioPharmaceutical Company

In a response to demands from various stakeholders and civil society, some companies develop ethics programs consisting of a code of ethics, ethics training and various procedures for reporting unethical conduct. The aim of this article is to contribute with a theoretically founded analysis of how an ethics program is recontextualized as it travels from an ethics office in Denmark into business units in Switzerland and China. Drawing on an ethnographic study within a multinational biopharmaceutical company, we demonstrate how its code of business ethics resembles ideals of empowerment and individual critical thinking that can be found within the Scandinavian socio-cultural context in which the ethics program originated. Further, we show how the way the entire ethics program is communicated through training with a focus on dilemma thinking becomes a liability when introduced into other business units and socio-cultural contexts. We conclude that in order to create sustainable ethics programs and develop responsible global leaders, companies must take into account the sociocultural heritage of the code of ethics they seek to disseminate. Seemingly universal values and preferred behaviors cannot merely be “transferred” within a multinational organization and transformed into responsible business practices without local adaptations

a social constructionis perspective

There have been a number of attempts to explain post-merger problems by cultural differences, and in this paper, we argue that much previous research on mergers is based on an essentialist concept of culture. We claim that this conception is a problematic starting point for cultural studies, and argue for a social constructionist alternative. The conceptual challenges we address are: decontextualization of cultural issues, cultural differentiation and fragmentation, and structural versus processual views on culture. We also outline an agenda for future merger research and argue for studies focusing on cultural sensemaking processes in merging organizations by adopting narrative perspectives. Key words: merger, culture, organizational change, integration, social constructionism, narrative

«We need more women in managerial jobs» – Gender equality and management in the Nordic context : Deconstruction and critical perspectives

Focusing on the Nordic context, this article highlights complexities between gender equality discourse established at the societal level and discursive practice in organizations, particularly in relation to management, managing and managers. This research task is carried out by deconstructing a management text, and grounding the deconstruction in critical feminist literature. This analysis illustrates how managerial discourse is challenged and questioned by pro-egaliterian arguments in the Nordic context. However, it also demonstrates the pervasiveness of the gendered elements in managerial discourse, which relies on specific conceptions of parenthood where motherhood is constructed as problematic whereas fatherhood remains absent – and thus unproblematic. It is suggested that the ‘Nordic case’ provides a fruitful basis for similar studies in other societal contexts in Europe.Focalizado no contexto Nórdico, este artigo realça as complexidades existentes entre um discurso assente na igualdade de géneros sexuais, existente ao nível societal, e as práticas discursivas nas organizações, particularmente no que diz respeito à gestão e aos gestores. Este objectivo é alcançado através de uma deconstrução de um texto de gestão, a qual é baseada na literatura crítica feminista. Esta análise ilustra os desafios e questões que se colocam ao discurso de gestão pelos argumentos pro-igualitários no contexto Nórdico. Contudo, também demonstra a infiltração de elementos pertencentes ao género sexual no discurso de gestão, os quais assentam em concepções especifícas de maternidade ou paternidade, em que a primeira é tida como problemática, enquanto a segundo está ausente, logo não é problemática. Sugere-se que o «caso Nórdico» fornece uma base rica para estudos semelhantes em outros contextos societais na Europa