At the beginning of the privatisation the Hungarian freezer manufacturer, Lehel, was acquired by the Swedish Global industry leader, Electrolux. The author of the paper reported on the success and the challenges of the acquisition (Illes and Clarkson, 1997 a).
Electrolux is present in more than sixty countries and one of the world’s largest producers of white goods. But not everybody knows that it is a Swedish company. One of the reasons for its success is that it becomes an integral part of local and national culture all around the world. The employees of Electrolux must learn foreign languages and they must be prepared to travel and relocate. The company considers diversity as a basic strength.
The Hungarian Lehel Refrigerator Company was found in 1952 and by the 1980s became Hungary’s sole manufacturer of refrigerators. Lehel was claimed to be the highest quality producer of household appliances in Eastern Europe.
In 1991 Lehel was sold to Electrolux of Sweden as one of a number of key privatisations. There was uncertainty and fear in Lehel prior to during and right after the privatisation. There was a lot of mutual mistrust when the Swedes first took over, and issues of national differences started to surface. However problems were fairly quickly overcome and the merger was considered a success (Illes and Clarkson, 1997 a).
The success of the take over was well documented in the press in the mid 1990s.
The current research was designed to look at the changes between 1996 and 2002.
Six managers were formally interviewed and four informal conversations were held with administrative staff on the 3rd of June at Jaszbereny in Hungary. Particular attention was given to the organisational culture change within the Hungarian subsidiary over the past ten years.
The paper reports on the field trip and concludes that the Hungarian subsidiary has fully integrated into the global enterprise over the past ten years and makes a substantial contribution not only to the revenue but also to the knowledge based competitive advantage of Electrolux
