<p>Cross-national merger and acquisition (M&A) activity is common and is argued to be a strategic tool for the growth of multinational corporations. Yet, M&A activity has a high failure rate which theorists have explained being due to cultural clashes. Previous research has explained these clashes being due to cultural distance. Other studies have focused on the extent to which the firms are culturally integrated and its relation to cultural clashes. In this study we investigate the relation between cultural distance and the extent to which the firms are culturally integrated as we believe that this relation in turn influences how cultural clashes are perceived by managers.</p><p>As the human side of M&A has become of great interest within research we stress the importance of understanding what happens with managers in the organization during the post-acquisition process. The purpose of this thesis is therefore to investigate the managers’ perception of cultural clashes, in relation to the perceived extent of cultural integration and perceived cultural distance, in cross-national mergers and acquisitions.</p><p>In order to achieve an in-depth understanding of a series of cross-national M&As and to answer the purpose of this thesis, a qualitative case study design was used. Semistandardized interviews were made with ten managers from a Swedish firm that has gone through a series of cross-national M&As involving Swiss, French and German managements.</p><p>The findings show that managers’ perception of cultural clashes differs depending on to what extent two firms are culturally integrated and in relation to the cultural distance between the two firms. No matter if high or low cultural distance managers perceive few cul-tural clashes if the extent to which the firms are integrated is low. If the cultural integration, on the other hand, is high and the cultural distance is high, the cultural clashes are perceived as many. Our findings indicate that cultural clashes are perceived differently depend-ing on how they affect the managerial role and the organizational behaviour. We refer to these clashes as implicit agreements and explicit statements. Clashes in implicit agreements are evolved from behaviour deeply rooted in national culture and corporate culture. These clashes have minor effects on the managerial role and the organizational behaviour. Never-theless, managers need to be aware of the differences and adapt to the preferred behaviour when interacting with the acquiring firm’s management. Explicit statements, on the other hand, affect the managerial role and organizational behaviour and lead to cultural clashes that conduce to frustration, lack of motivation and inefficiency. These clashes are more ap-parent when the extent of culturally integration is high. Therefore, the acquiring firm should not attempt to assimilate its target company in cross-national M&As.</p>

ĮVADAS: Įmonių sujungimai ir įsigijimai yra brangus ir sudėtingas verslo pasaulio reiškinys, pastaruoju metu vis dažniau pasireiškiantis ir valstybiniame sektoriuje. Daug mokslinių tyrinėjimų atlikta šioje srityje nustatant esminius sėkmės faktorius, lemiančius efektyvią įmonės veiklą po integracijos. Kokybės vadyba integruojantis įmonėms deja nėra dominuojanti tema moksliniuose darbuose. DARBO TIKSLAS IR UŽDAVINIAI: Šio darbo tikslas yra įvertinti kokybės valdymą integruojantis įmonėms darbuotojų ir vadovybės požiūriu. METODIKA: Tyrimo metodika rėmėsi literatūros apžvalgoje identifikuotais svarbiais strateginio valdymo, visuotinės kokybės vadybos ir verslo tobulumo principais kurie padėjo sudaryti šios srities teorines rekomendacijas bei klausimynus. Kiekybinis ir kokybinis tyrimai buvo suplanuoti ir atlikti tiriant Šveicarijos ir Danijos medicininės įrangos gamybos įmonių susijungimą ir praėjus 33 mėnesiams po oficialios datos. Tyrimo duomenys atskleidė darbuotojų (34 respondentai) ir vadovybės (3 respondentai) požiūrį į integracijos eigą, pointegracinę įmonės veiklą ir kokybės vadybą. Kiekybiniai duomenys buvo išanalizuoti naudojant Chi-kvadrat testą (požymių nepriklausomumo kriterijų) ir z-testą (tikimybių lygybių kriterijų). REZULTATAI IR IŠVADOS: Tyrimas parodė, kad pagrindinė sujungimo motyvacija buvo strateginio pobūdžio – produktų portfelio plėtra. Tai labai sustiprino Šveicarijos padalinį, kuriam buvo sudarytos geresnės sąlygos siekti komercinių tikslų. Tačiau... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / INTRODUCTION: Mergers and acquisitions are common and complex phenomenon in the world of business also moving to the public sector lately. Vast amounts of research have been made to look for the critical success factors for successful post-integration performance. Quality Management in M&As has not been dominating on the agenda though. Due to relevance to today’s business success and lacking presence on research agendas the topic was chosen to be explored more deeply. AIM OF STUDY AND OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this master thesis is to evaluate the merger process and Quality Management role seen from a perspective of both employees and management. METHODS: Strategic Management, Total Quality Management and Business Excellence principles served as a framework in designing qualitative and quantitative surveys. The surveys were executed in Danish and Swiss medical device company’s affiliates merged 33 months before the research. The data demonstrates perception of employees (34 respondents) and managers (3 respondents) with regards to the merger’s course, impact on the new company’s performance and the Quality Management in the merger process. Quantitative data was analyzed using Chi-square test for association and two proportion z-test for independence of probabilities. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: The surveys revealed a strategic merger with product portfolio expansion as a main motive which substantially strengthened Swiss subsidiary with new capabilities and more business... [to full text]

This paper uses event study methodology to present evidence that acquirer announcement effects for mergers and acquisitions (M&A) in the American Media and Entertainment (M&E) industry are insignificant. In order to reach this conclusion, this paper both examines existing literature on the topic and manipulates available data on public companies in the M&E industry. It also uses this data to investigate the extent to which different factors influence the acquirer announcement effects. These factors include: the type of financing used for the deal, recent mega-merger failures in the M&E industry, M&A strategy (expansion vs. diversification), as well as target size, country, and sub- industry. The results show that none of these factors have a significant impact on announcement effects.

Many studies have been performed on the short- and long-run abnormal returns to acquirers in acquisition attempts, but the topic of bidding wars is relatively unexplored. This piece performs an in-depth analysis of daily returns to both the public winners and losers in bidding war situations. It provides a counterargument to earlier findings that found that winners in bidding wars performed poorly compared to losers. I also fill in the gap in the analysis of short-term returns to paired winners and losers during and surrounding the bidding war. I find that winners perform significantly better than losers during certain critical periods in the bidding war, and this appears to signal the increased likelihood of the winner’s success. However, in the short-term, the market consistently misjudges the direction of the long-run benefits of the acquisition to the winner.

This thesis researches what effect the economic crisis of ’08-’09 had on the returns of M&amp;A deals, and whether the type of diversification in the deal affected this relationship. In order to do this, a sample of 898 M&amp;A deals announced between 2006 and 2011 is constructed. With this data an event study is executed, followed by an OLS regression. Both the event study and the regression find a significant negative effect of the crisis period on the abnormal returns of M&amp;A deals, while no significant moderating effect of both cross-border and industrial diversification is found. The results show that it is important for other research on M&amp;A returns to look at the state of the economic cycle at the point in time the M&amp;A deal was announced, as this could influence the outcomes of these studies. Furthermore, the results should discourage firms to participate in M&amp;A deals during crisis periods, as these will be value destroying compared to the same deals during non-crisis periods.

The diploma thesis covers partial area of investment evaluation. It's main objective is to test the possible application of the real options theory on the Reverse Termination Fee valuation. This thesis considers the Reverse Termination Fee as a real option to abandon project and evaluates it using a binomial pricing model based on the volatility of the stock market. The result of this valuation is a price map. The map itself is analyzed together with the market analysis of announced trades using this fee as a deal protection. The conclusion of this thesis is formed based on observed trends and correlation between partial outputs of the binomial pricing model and market analysis.

Syftet med studien är att undersöka hur företagsledningen internt kommunicerar och effekten av intern kommunikation på organisationsidentifiering vid en större organisatorisk förändring. En kombination av kvalitativ och kvantitativ metod används vilken innehåller deskriptivstatistik av både det kvalitativa och det kvantitativa urvalet. Sju hypotestester genomförs på ett urval av 53 respondenter. Studien genomförs på ett företag i Sverige vilket nyligen genomgått en större organisatorisk förändring. Resultatet visar på en tydlig skillnad mellan ledarnas uppfattade effekter av deras interna kommunikation jämfört med medarbetarnas attityd. Resultatet visar också att ledarnas val av kommunikationskanaler stämde väl överens med vadmedarbetarna föredrar. Däremot finner vi att en tydlig kommunikationsplan saknas in omorganisationen. Vidare visar resultatet att medarbetarna uppvisar en hög grad av organisationsidentifiering efter den organisatoriska förändringen. Studien indikerar att organisationer bör fokusera på den interna marknadsföringen efter att de varit med i ett uppköpför att åstadkomma en hög nivå av organisatorisk identifiering inom organisationen och mellanmedarbetare. / The purpose of the study is to examine how the corporate management communicates internally and the effects of internal communication on organizational identification within a major organizational change. We use a mixed qualitative and quantitative approach including descriptive analysis on both the qualitative and quantitative samples. Seven hypothesis tests are conducted on a sample of 53 participants. The study is carried out at a specific company in Sweden that recently went through a major organizational change. Our findings reveal a difference in leaders perceived effects of their internal communication compared to what the employees perceived. On the contrary, our findings also reveal that the leaders use of communication channels fits well with the employees though a lack of a structured communication plan is identified. The findings also show that the employees show a high degree of organizational identification after the organizational change. The study indicates that organizations should focus on internal marketing after a merger or acquisition in order to gain a high level of organizational identification within the organizations and its employees. This thesis is written in Swedish.

The objective of the thesis is to advance the concept of learning by explicating the mechanisms contributing to knowledge accumulation and its transfer to new situations. On the basis of 44 case studies, the framework is refined to accurately capture the unique features and outcomes of experiential knowledge in acquisitions. Feedback from the performance of prior acquisitions was found to enrich representations of action-outcome linkages and modify procedures in search and valuation. Inferential transfer though depended on similar kinds of features emerging in subsequent decisions. Outcomes therefore reflected the integration of feedback processes and similarity judgments. From the case studies, a set of hypotheses was developed and their plausibility tested, using another data set on the acquisitions of 687 managers. The research finds that the performance of prior decisions and the similarity to prior experiences materially impact behaviour. Poor performance in prior, similar acquisitions led to a reduction in subsequent risk behaviour, illustrated by the extent of risk management and by the lessening of commitment to specific transactions. The impact of performance feedback was also extant in the similarity of choice to prior experiences. The results illustrate that although feedback shapes perceptions of likelihood and expected value, similarity judgments moderate the impact of prior performance on behaviour. Given the impact on acquisition behaviour, the research also illustrates that prior experiences do not necessarily increase performance. Adaptation from prior failures was not unambiguously linked to positive returns, suggesting limitations from feedback mechanisms. Rather, the extent and similarity of acquisition experience led to a reduction in the variability of performance. By providing a framework for selecting planning procedures, greater experience tended to reduce surprises post-acquisition.

Ao considerar o cenário atual, caracterizado pela globalização e internacionalização dos mercados, este estudo apresenta a evolução e o desempenho dos bancos, classificados em públicos, privados nacionais e estrangeiros, no Sistema Financeiro Nacional durante o Plano Real, desde 01/07/1994 a 31/12/2002. Trata-se, inicialmente, de um estudo descritivo setorial comparativo entre a participação desses três grupos de bancos e, principalmente, de um estudo empírico, por meio de análise fatorial, com indicadores contábeis dos bancos privados nacionais e dos bancos estrangeiros no país durante o período estudado. O Sistema Financeiro Nacional abordado é o relativo no período anterior à Reforma Bancária de 64 e, principalmente, ao vigente no Plano Real, com as medidas para reestruturação e fortalecimento do sistema financeiro, que contribuíram para as mudanças ocorridas no setor bancário. Destacam-se os Regimes Especiais, incluindo o RAET, o Fundo Garantidor de Crédito, o PROER, o PROES, os incentivos para as operações de reestruturação, fusões & aquisições, e a presença do capital estrangeiro no país. É analisada a evolução do número de bancos comerciais e múltiplos e de caixas econômicas em funcionamento antes do Plano Real (30/06/1994). Esses são classificados em três grupos: público, privado nacional e estrangeiro. Em seguida, são descritas as mudanças ocorridas referentes ao número de bancos desses grupos desde o início do Plano Real (01/07/1994) até 31/12/2002, com destaque para as privatizações e as transferências de controle. A pesquisa tem como propósito principal analisar os indicadores de desempenho bancário do setor privado nacional e do setor estrangeiro a fim de verificar a hipótese subjacente do estudo, ou seja, se há diferença entre as variáveis dos fatores que compõem os indicadores contábeis dos bancos privados nacionais e dos bancos estrangeiros durante o período entre 01/07/1994 a 31/12/2002. Assim, trata-se de um estudo empírico, realizado por meio de análise fatorial dos indicadores bancários, extraídos das Demonstrações Contábeis. / In view of the current market globalization and internationalization scenario, this study presents the evolution in the performance of banks, which are classified as public, Brazilian private and foreign private, in the National Financial System during the Real Plan, in the period from 07/01/1994 to 12/31/2002. Initially, a descriptive sectorial study compares the participation of these three groups of banks. Furthermore, an empirical study is carried out by means of factorial analysis, which uses accounting indicators from Brazilian private and foreign banks that were active in the country during the period under analysis. The National Financial System considered in this research refers to the period before the 1964 Bank Reform and, mainly, to the system in vigor during the Real Plan, and is characterized by its measures to restructure and strengthen the financial system, which contributed to the changes that occurred in the banking sector. Special attention is given to the Special Regimes, including the RAET (Temporary Special Administration Regime), the Credit Guarantee Fund, the PROER (Program of Incentives for the Restructuring and Strengthening of the National Financial System), the PROES (Program of Incentives for the Restructuring of the State Role in Banking Activity), the incentives for restructuring operations, mergers & acquisitions and the presence of foreign capital in Brazil. We analyze the evolution in the number of commercial and multiple banks and federal government savings banks that were active before the Real Plan (06/30/1994). These are classified in three groups: public, Brazilian private and foreign. Next, we describe the changes that occurred in the number of banks in each of these groups since the start of the Real Plan (07/01/1994) until 12/31/2002, especially privatizations and control transfers. The main aim of this study is to analyze the bank performance indicators in the Brazilian private and in the foreign sector, with a view to verifying the study premise, that is, whether there exists a difference between Brazilian private and foreign banks in the variables of factors that compose the accounting indicators during the period from 07/01/1994 to 12/31/2002. Therefore, an empirical study was carried out by means of the factorial analysis of banking indicators that were taken from the Financial Statements.

A cadeia do açúcar tem sido um dos ícones da economia brasileira por séculos. Em meados da década de 1970, ela passou pela primeira mudança expressiva, a introdução do Proálcool, programa de combustível alternativo apoiado pelo governo. Após a recente virada do século, a cadeia sucroalcooleira passou por nova mudança, dessa vez fomentada pela tecnologia, com a introdução dos motores flex. Na mesma ocasião, algumas empresas iniciaram a comercialização de mais um importante produto, a bioeletricidade, a partir da cogeração de energia elétrica, resultante da queima do bagaço da cana no processo produtivo das usinas, anteriormente realizada para consumo próprio e agora, melhorada e ampliada, também comercializada como novo produto. Em meados da década de 2000, surgiram de forma mais expressiva diversos movimentos de aquisições, fusões e alianças estratégicas, cujos focos prioritários tem sido o mercado e a tecnologia. Tais movimentos envolvem empresas nacionais e transnacionais em diferentes segmentos: petrolíferas, petroquímicas, empresas de biotecnologia com foco no desenvolvimento de novos e processos e produtos, entre outras. Assim, emerge e se configura a cadeia sucroenergética brasileira, objeto de estudo desta pesquisa predominantemente exploratória, que reúne uma ampla base de dados e informações, incluindo entrevistas de executivos, pesquisadores e especialistas da cadeia. Os resultados indicam um fenômeno singular. Os movimentos de aquisições, fusões e alianças estratégicas estão alterando de forma rápida e drástica a configuração da cadeia sucronergética. Aquisições e fusões predominam em se tratando de crescente concentração horizontal e vertical, resultando na formação de grandes empresas ou grupos econômicos que atuam praticamente em todas as etapas da cadeia; enquanto alianças estratégicas predominam em se tratando de parcerias com ênfase em tecnologia, tendo por foco um amplo leque de potenciais inovações em processo (sendo as parcerias baseadas principalmente em contratos) ou produtos (principalmente, joint ventures). / The sugar chain has been one of the icons of the Brazilian economy for centuries. In mid 1970\'s it went through a drastic change with the introduction of \'Proalcool\', an alternative fuel (ethanol) program supported by the Brazilian Government. After the recent turn of the century, the ethanol and sugar chain went through another drastic change, this time triggered by technology, with the introduction of \'flex fuel vehicles\'. At the same time, some companies started to sell a new product: bioelectricity, as a result of the energy generated by the burning of sugar cane bagasse in the boilers; which was previously consumed internally only, but now it has been improved and increased, thus being sold as a new product. In mid 2000\'s, several acquisitions, mergers and strategic alliances started to take place in the chain, whose focus has been, primarily, market and technology. Said movements included transnational companies of different sectors, such as oil and petrochemical, also biotechnology companies focusing on new processes and/or products, among other companies. Thus, emerges the sugar, ethanol and bioenergy chain which is the object of this exploratory research. It sums up an extensive data and information base including interviews with executives, researchers and experts. The results indicate a singular phenomenon. Acquisitions, mergers and strategic alliances are changing in a fast and drastic way the configuration of the chain. However, acquisitions and mergers prevail concerning horizontal and vertical integration, resulting in large companies or economic groups which permeate most of the supply chain; while strategic alliances prevail regarding technology partnerships focusing either a broad portfolio of potential new processes (mostly through contracts i.e. non equity agreements) or new products (mostly through joint ventures).