Managing Cultural Integration in Cross-Border Merger and Acquisition Activities

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2018 in the subject Business economics - Business Management, Corporate Governance, grade: 1,3, Berlin School of Economics and Law, language: English, abstract: What are the critical success factors in CBM&A activities? What are the obstacles to and facilitators of a successful cultural integration in CBM&A activities? Which actions need to be taken to successfully manage cultural integration processes during CBM&A activities? This thesis will aim to answer these three research questions. Consequently, the research conducted aims to create an elaborate understanding for one of the most cited reasons of CBM&A failure, cultural integration, and to answer the research questions by developing a concrete action plan. This shall be approached by firstly outlining a brief overview of M&A theory before addressing special aspects of CBM&As in chapter 2. The second chapter will be concluded by explaining the complexity of culture and establishing a selection of empirically proven approaches on assessing culture. Subsequently, chapter 3 will focus on the decision factors which determine integration approaches before cultural integration models will be more narrowly outlined. Chapter 3 will then highlight the critical factors influencing cultural integration in more detail and start elaborating on how the evolving problems related to cultural integration can be encountered. In chapter 4, the research approach and methods will be explained in detail before the fifth chapter will highlight the key findings of the empirical analysis. Chapter 5 will then discuss the research findings and develop an action plan to show managerial implications on how to successfully manage cultural integration. Lastly, chapter 6 will summarize the findings of this thesis and illustrate the limitations of the research, before outlining starting points for future research.