The UK competition authorities are responsible for regulating company mergers that were originally considered to have adverse effects that were “against the public interest”, or presently that could result in a “substantial lessening of competition”. The research in this thesis examines wider economic side effects of this regulatory policy that fall outside the remit of the competition authorities. Data on 63 merger cases that were subject to the merger regulatory process by the UK competition authorities between 1989 and 2002 are studied for effects on two economic aspects, shareholder value and managers’ motivations to undertake mergers. Some previous studies have suggested that competition regimes can destroy shareholder value. The research in this thesis confirms the finding from earlier studies of greater gains to shareholders in target rather than bidding companies, but does not find evidence supporting overall loss of shareholder value to target company shareholders when a merger is prohibited. It finds evidence that when the regulatory regime is stable and well understood the capital market behaves efficiently in response to new information. However, for a sub group of the mergers involving companies with a new regulatory regime, of which industry and the market had little or no experience with respect to mergers, the capital market operated less efficiently. A number of studies have also considered the motivation of managers to follow a merger strategy. Apparently, none has looked at the influence of competition regulation on merger motives using stock market data and event study techniques. This research examined data for the stock market’s perceptions of what motivated managers to pursue their initial merger bid. The findings suggest that Synergy and Hubris dominate as motivations for mergers and that, unintentionally, competition policy may help to reduce the number of mergers motivated by Managerialism.

In today’s business world, it appears to be impossible for companies to survive without expanding through deals that result in mergers and acquisitions. Mergers and acquisitions represent a favourable medium of growth. However, studies indicate a high rate of failure in these operations. Evidently, there are areas that are mismanaged during the course of a merger or acquisition.   If organizations make a decision to go through a merger or acquisition, it is vital that they devote significant attention and resources to understand and deal with opportunities and challenges presented during its processes. Through our research we have come to identify four important aspects as integral to a successful merger and acquisition. These components: culture, synergies, leadership and politics, each independently and together when mismanaged become the source of a merger or acquisition failing.  If we are to envision the newly formed organization post a merger or acquisition as the structure, we see these four components as the pillars of this structure.  The strength or weakness of these pillars will determine the future of the newly formed organization.  At the other end of the spectrum, the very core aspects that result in success, we believe when mismanaged can spell catastrophe for the organization. However, lessons in mismanagement in these very four strategic areas can be the game changer that could possibly turn a merger and acquisition failure into success. It is only through an analytical study of the mismanagement pertinent in these four individual areas that we arrive at answers so that we may change this dominant trend of failure in mergers and acquisitions.

Our study is focused on how the public sector can collaborate with the private sector on a certain issue. The public sector wanted to create a project to increase bicycling in the municipality of Kalmar. Our problem was to develop a sustainable way to collaborate between the two parties. We managed to present a suggestion on how the public sector with communication could improve their Public Relations with the private sector and therefore letting the parties benefit from their differences, thus making it possible to release synergy.Using semi-structured interviews and a workshop, we could clarify the values and attitudes of the parties to bring forth the core values to develop a shared vision. Where the identified differences were found, we used a dialog strategy based on intercultural conflict management as a communication tool. The result was exemplified with things that were expressed in the interviews, and we presented a framework on how to think when choosing the right type of collaboration model for the specified activity.

The main aim of this study was to test and ascertain, objectively, theexistence/occurrence of the phenomenon of Synergy in teams. To do this, the results of anonline course in Umea University, where students are invariably required to do a bunch ofindividual as well as team assignments, were analysed: the idea was to compare the marksobtained by the students in their team assignments with their marks in their individualassignments and to check if there was a reasonably good number of instances where the teammark was higher than the highest individual mark in that particular team. The basicassumption was that in case the team mark of a team was higher than the highest individualmark in that team, then, it can be presumed that synergy has taken place in that team for thatparticular team assignment. And, given a reasonably large sample of teams, it would beinstructive to see what percentage of groups/teams actually show synergy. In case a goodnumber of teams show such results then we could conclude that there was objective evidencein favour of the synergy. In case our analysis brought to fore such results then it would benatural to take the study one step ahead and test a broad causal relationship of synergy withthe complexity/difficulty of task at hand.After analysing the results of about 387 students, who worked in about 104 teams, itwas found that about 69.23% teams scored higher than the highest scoring individual; 93.26%teams faired better than the average score of team members; and, 98.07% teams can be said tohave performed better if compared to the lowest individual score.Further, one level below, when team-score and individual-score were compared acrossdifferent team and individual tasks (Case Studies), it still came to fore that teams hadoutperformed the individuals. And, when a single student’s marks in his team assignmentswere compared with his marks in his individual assignments, in five out of six comparisons itwas found that the team mark was convincingly higher than the individual mark.All these results strongly indicated the existence/occurrence of synergy in teams.In addition to this, an experiment on two teams of students was also performed toshow that synergy was more likely to happen if the task at hand was complex/ difficult. Theresults of this experiment seemed to corroborate the contention of the researchers.Keywords: Project Management, Team, Team Work, Individual work, Synergy

Under the situation of the internationalization and global trend, enterprises are facing ever more rigorous competition. Therefore the best way to keep sustainable competitive advantage is to upgrade continuously, and through economies of scale and economies of scope to keep the cost down. Furthermore, to ensure firm¡¦s global competitiveness, the fast growth strategies are through mergers and acquisitions. Based on that American enterprises had over nine thousand M&A cases, we found about three fourth of the result of M&A are not successful achievement; its failure rate is extremely high. The reasons included fault in selecting the target, over-paying, and failing to integrate after M&A. Although M&A can instantly gain the another firm, but still long way to achieving success, because the effects in M&A must go through integration stages. Even if the M&A strategy is correct and the price is reasonable, failing to integrate after M&A, the synergy of M&A is unable to reach. This individual research is deeply researching the process and result of USI group after M&A, then compare between the research results and related documents, and conduct to conclude the suggestion for the further integration.

Japan's economy is declining since the impact of the economic ¡§foam¡¨ in the 1990s. Besides, under the double blow of Asian financial storm many enterprises go bankrupt, reforming happens frequently day by day within the territory of Japan. Japanese steel industry does not make an exception. In order to increase the occupation rate of market in the industry or for the goal of long-lasting operation, the actions of merger and alliance among the steel factories are prevailing. According to the positive attitude of the steel blast furnace factories to deal with this sitution they established their own trading department one after another. Make the demands of trading, information and finance services provided by the trading companies who live by the steel blast furnance factories go down, it force the companies to adopt the action of cooperation or merger to prevent disappearing in the industry. This study utilizes the case study approach to deduce the management model of the merged enterprises and induce with the phenomenon. According to the secondary and case interview materials collected to proceed an exploratory qualitative research. Case study aims the new established company composed of the isolated steel departments of Itochu and Marubeni with equal stakes. Probes into its tactics goal, merger motive, merger process related to the operation performance and try to establish a management model of merger. This study found that the direction and method of decision while carrying out merger originally, and the unique national and corporate culture in this case improve to reach the anticipated synergy achievement on the initial stage of merger. And provide suggestions and references to companies which intend to merge with similar culture and background.

According to the information, the value of corporation acquired in global mergers amounted to US$4 trillion. Last year the biggest merger & acquisition was the AT&A bought the BellSouth Group in US for US$860 billion. After 1990, the corporate mergers & acquisitions become a main magic tool of a company to strengthen its market competition. Examples of same industry mergers were: Glaxo Wellcom PLC bought SmithKline Beecham PLC & Pfizer with Warner-Lambert in Pharmaceutical industry Daimler Benz bought Chrysler in vehicle industry Compaq with Digital in high technology industry Seibu Group with Itochu in Supermarket industry Bank of Tokyo with Mitsubishi Bank in banking industry Taiwan Mobile with Columbia in communication industry The diversification of M&A such as: Viacom with CBS Corporation The famous Canadian wine group ¡V Seagram acquired the well-known Asian company Polygram Musical Company at US$106 billion America Online with Time Warner. The above illustrated that the M&A in the diversification and related industry has become a trend and as vital element in the main tool to enhance market competition. In 2002, the figure showed the total global value in M&A was US$1.1 trillion. Regionally, the M&A trading in Europe, US and Japan (excluding other Asian countries) were US$1.5 trillion, US$1.44 trillion and US$3,815 billion respectively. However, research by the KPMG Consulting illustrated that 59% of M&A performances were not good as expected. Many cases and statistics revealed that about 30% - 50% of the completed M&A in US failed, whereas the success rate did not reach 50% in the M&A cases in Europe. The cases showed that the performance of M&A would need to go through a conformity process to become effective. In this study, the case used was two apparel firms of different products in Hong Kong (Horizontal Merger), which for the reasons other than the above, agreed to merger to become one of the biggest apparel corporation in Hong Kong. Nevertheless, during the process of combination, many problems had arisen, such as: 1. Corporate Culture 2. Core Value 3. Measurement of Performance 4. Market Positioning 5. Organization Structure 6. Sales Operation 7. Operation Mode of Production 8. R&D Because of the differences in conceptual recognition, and changes in internal and external circumstances, the right and wrong attempts, in the course of learning process, had made from profits to loss, from loss to profits again and achieved a mixed effect in the growth path and future expectation. In this regard the operation was not smooth after the merger. But after continual improvement and re-engineering, the new company has become to make profit in 2004.

Abstract There are over 60 companies, which have had the experience in TPM implementation, but only 12 companies have got TPM Award until 2000. We may pose this issue, since they have the same TPM system and similar implementing structure/procedure or even the identical consultant, they have obtained total different result, what on earth it is? I attribute this different result to the incitement of teamwork, as well as different management style which may leads to the different achievement of TPM. Herewith, we will review firstly the theoretic character of TPM, and then study the theory of leadership, teamwork and synergy. After that, we will work out the inference of successful mode for the implementation of TPM. According to theoretic inference, a questionnaire was made, which had been listed questions on the basic information of company, the management style of key leader and promoting team of TPM. Above all, TPM performance is also included. This report will review all theoretic inference, and compare to the statistical result of questionnaire, which makes me organize a practical as well as successful mode, i.e. proper leadership and appropriate teamwork leads to high performance of TPM activity. Key Word: Total Productive Management (TPM), MP (Maintenance Prevention) Information, Management Style, Team Work and Synergy.

Abstract Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are important management tools of chief executive officers (CEOs.) The benefits of M&A include fast expanding production capacity, acquiring technical patents, overcoming the entry of obstacles, grasping markets, taking over talents, generating the synergy of operation and finance, adjusting product mix or reducing production capacity any time during the recession of markets. Steel industry itself has the character of benefits in economical scale. Therefore, Mittal Steel Company led to hand over its successful experience unceasingly in the recent year, causing an international tide of M&A. In the recent emerging China¡¦s economic system, China¡¦s steel industry was integrated under the guide of national policy. Lots of small steel plants became international leading steel producers. This is contributed to the M&A rendering the company¡¦s scale large, increasing international visibility and bringing people¡¦s notice to its talks and behaviors. Owing to quite high risks of M&A itself, steel industry must grasp the key success factor so as to reduce the risks of operation. Due to the difference of every industry, every company and outside environment, each of their positions in the industrial value chain is also different. Therefore, the successful factors of each company¡¦s M&A are somewhat different, too. This study aims at hoping to probe the successful factors of steel industry¡¦s M&A by case study, as well as to understand the follows: the status of Taiwan¡¦s steel industry, the difficulty of M&A in Taiwan¡¦s industry, the successful factors of steel industry and the generated effect of steel industry¡¦s M&A. The result of this study shows that the relationship between China and Taiwan has been closer and closer. Taiwan¡¦s steel producers have to grasp the trend of changes of China¡¦s steel plants so as to prevent error decision making. As for the successful factors of steel industry¡¦s M&A, the first priority of conditions is to obtain the top management support and to be executed by an experienced teamwork of M&A so that the M&A experience can be handed over by cumulative knowledge. Since the statistics shows that the percentage of M&A success is small, it has better to evaluate the worst situation prior to the job¡¦s execution as well as to set a bottom line of loss in order to flexibly dispose the changes of situation at any time and to make the M&A easier to success.

In the era of knowledge-based economy, the competition models in information service and telecom industries have been affected by rivals across the countries, evolutions of cutting-edge technologies and new business models. The competition advantages of traditional cross-industry large firms depend on the capability of vertical or horizontal integrations. The joint operational movements have become one of the core competences of enterprise. The large firm which has several strategic business units (SBUs) often faces complications of beneficial conflicts between its SBUs. In addition, cooperative achievement which should be produced by deploying balanced scorecard (BSC) could be affected due to poor communication and evaluation between headquarter (HQ) and the SBUs. By choosing the C telecom company as a case study, this thesis explores how BSC and strategy map which are deployed inside this company affect HQ and SBUs in operational aspect. By interviewing the senior managers from HQ and SBUs of the C telecom company, we can actually access the status of implementing BSC and the synergies between HQ and SBUs in this firm. Moreover, with Goold & Campbell (1998) as the theory basis, we analyze how BSC affects synergies by reviewing the signs of six synergy types. We found in this thesis that BSC in the C telecom company apparently have created significant effects in three synergy types, such as ¡§shared know-how¡¨, ¡§shared tangible resources¡¨ and ¡§combined business creation¡¨. However, only partial or none of effects have appeared in other synergy types, including ¡§coordinated strategies¡¨, ¡§vertical integration¡¨ and ¡§combined business creation¡¨. In order to produce more significant effects of synergies, we provide the following suggestions to C telecom company while functioning BSC. 1. Reinforce the integration of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). 2. Maintain the autonomy of SBUs. 3. Enhance the coordination and intervention competences of HQ. 4. Organize the Office of Strategy Management (OSM).