跨国公司中的文化差异与冲突

跨国公司中的文化差异与冲突

a study of cultural differences and cultural conflicts in

multinational corporations

abstract： the 2008 global economic crisis offers an unprecedentedly golden chance to the chinese national enterprises that are desire of taking over overseas big potatoes. nevertheless， the tragedies of cross-border acquisition and merger tie much closer to business world than the comedies. in fact， the main reason of the failure is the dearth of global leadership and intercultural communication competence among domestic entrepreneurs and management team members who are also short of experience of overseas business operation， which sets huge obstacles for the domestic corporations to handle multinational corporation syndrome （mcs）loomed shortly after the fledging period of

cross-border acquisition and merger. these paper analyses the relationship between culture and management， uncovers the real cause of multinational corporation syndrome一一cultural differences， and proposes golden time to address multinational corporation syndrome.

key words： cultural differences， cultural conflicts，multinational corporations

1.introduction

the global economic crisis in the late of 2008 has brought catastrophe to a lot of well-established multinationals whose current business running status stays at stake. in order to fight against financial deficit， the previous ever bright giants cannot but decide to sell assets as well as subsidiaries. consequently， it offers an unprecedentedly golden chance to the chinese national enterprises that are desire of taking over overseas big potatoes. on the one hand，the domestic corporations have been developed at a dramatic speed with abundant capital reserves in the wake of china’s access to wto， which guarantees the finical capability of carrying out mergers or acquisitions. on the other， the local companies would not only level up competitiveness via absorbing state-of-the-art technology from overseas ones but also pave the way for launching thrilling campaigns on the international markets. nevertheless， the tragedies of cross-border acquisition and merger tie much closer to business world than the comedies. in fact， the main reason of the failure is the dearth of global leadership and intercultural communication competence among domestic entrepreneurs and management team members who are also short

of experience of overseas business operation， which sets huge obstacles for the domestic corporations to handle multinational corporation syndrome（mcs）loomed shortly after the fledging period of cross-border acquisition and merger.

2.intercultural integration in multinational corporation syndrome

bastine&ven （1986） and olie （1995） put forward multinational corporation syndrome （mcs）. it means that newly merged and acquired cross-border companies would encounter a lot of confusion， barriers， and frictions during corporation communication right after taking-over procedures.

olie （1995） maintains the rate of successful merger or acquisition floats from 40% to 50% . in his survey of 8000 newly acquired and merged companies， muller （1998） states that only 15070 of the companies bear sound outcome， whereas these successful companies do not yield direct profits in the coming few years. similar to their surveys， jack prouty，global partner of kpmg， displays his study of “70/70”concerning corporation acquisition and merger. it shows that 70% of the companies fail to realize its anticipated business value， and 70% of the failure occurs during the process of