M. Lubatkin et al., Managing mergers across borders: A two-nation exploration of a nationally bound administrative heritage, ORGAN SCI, 9(6), 1998, pp. 670-684
Top managers of British and French firms, which were recently acquired by e
ither British or French firms, were surveyed as to their perceptions of the
administrative approach-reflected in integrating mechanisms-used by the ac
quiring firms to establish headquarters-subsidiary control. Four types of i
ntegrative mechanisms were examined: structural? systems, social, and manag
erial. A multiple analysis of covariance model, coupled with a two-nation (
British and French), two-merger type (domestic, cross-national) sampling de
sign, found evidence that the administrative approaches used by managers du
ring merger integration from two nations partially reflect their different
heritages, and that these differences are consistent with national differen
ces and the theoretical perspectives of institutional development and cross
-cultural studies. Our findings, while exploratory, provide insight into th
e administrative difficulties of managing across borders and help us unders
tand why many cross-national firms continue to use ethnocentric approaches
in spite of the incentives for adopting a transnational approach. Moreover,
our findings add one more voice to a growing chorus calling for a theory o
f the firm, as embedded, institutionally, culturally, and historically.