Description of My Company
A business company is regarded as an organization using economic inputs or resources for providing services or goods to consumers in exchange for cash or even other products and other services (Lakshman, 2014). From this perspective, I operate a Manufacturing Business in which I am the sole proprietor. It means that I face unlimited liability as the owner implying that my creditors can come after my personal assets in case my business would not be able of paying their debts. As a manufacturing Company, my business usually purchases products with the primary aim of utilizing them as raw materials to make other new products. In particular, my company buys used second-hand motor vehicles in order to manufacture new and refurbished cars.
Description of Company X
However, my business has decided to merge with an international Company X that also deals with the manufacturing of motor vehicles. Company X is the second largest manufacturer of automobiles globally. Besides, this company also has more than 700 subsidiary firms that are as well involved in the manufacturing of automobile parts, automobiles, as well as industrial and commercial vehicles. Additionally, company X has various distributors and assembly plants in several countries across the world. Apart from automotive products, the subsidiaries of company X manufacture cork and rubber materials, synthetic resins, automatic looms, steel, as well as woolen and cotton products. Others also deal in prefabricated housing units, real estates, and the export and import of raw materials.
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Checklist of Steps to be taken to Unify Company Culture
Bringing together different cultures into a unified one is the most challenging facet of managing merger between two different companies. Saunders, Altinay and Riordan (2015) argue that this is because each of these organizations has their own distinct customs, relationship dynamics, and personalities that can result in clashes or even downright dysfunction, irrespective of how these firms could be culturally aligned.
Having in mind that the costs of a merger between my business and company X could be painfully apparent including the drop in employee morale and low-quality production, we jointly intend on taking various strategic steps in ensuring that there is a unified culture rather than a culture clash. Weber and Tarba (2013) posit that it is imperative to understand that culture clash has the potential of interfering with the basic working procedures so that they are misinterpreted easily thus making organizational employees in feeling anxious and frustrated, and ultimately resulting in defections and demoralization.
Therefore, our newly merged company intends to initially set the development agenda plan for a culture-change, and then sustaining and measuring the progress. It implies that the idea of developing a unified culture must focus on a specific group of employees including the front desk staff (Lakshman, 2014). Beginning with analyzing the differences, the merged company would then be able in defining particular behaviors it wishes to see. The new company would then classify the consequences as well as antecedents that would assist in fostering such-like behaviors. However, Saunders, Altinay and Riordan (2015) argue that this would comprise of a vigorous training program, which would be responsible for identifying, describing, and training all employees from both ends for these behaviors.
The newly merged company would as well take the step of changing its leadership structure by clearly defining and presenting it in a cogent and a transparent fashion. Besides, this would comprise of functional heads of all the departments from my business and company X. importantly, this step would assist in identifying a timeline with an explicit integration, and also demonstrating agreement and unity on all the critical issues and topics.
Also, we intend on conducting a research for determining differences within my company and organization X with consideration to cultural weaknesses and strengths of these two respective companies. The new company would as well enable the techniques of visualization including word clouds for enabling a common ground to cultural integration. Moreover, Weber and Tarba (2013) observe that it is critical for mergers to attempt in building a consensus via the social media including the use of Yammer and SharePoint. As a result, this would help in overcoming the cultural disparity and arriving at agreements.
Our newly merged company would also take the step of accentuating the positives as an essential cultural integration aspect. This would be achieved through identifying as well as cultivating the best elements of my business and company X, which would be done efficiently through interviewing people. Based on this, we will personally chat with employees from both ends instead of having a predetermined set of questions. Weber, Belkin and Tarba (2016) add that this is always a successful technique in unifying culture in a company since employees are open and relaxed.
Also, this merged organization intends on taking the step of communicating expectations to employees from my business and company X through employee surveys, meetings, regular updates, and one-on-one launches. This is because such a step would help in empowering employees in having a say to define the type of corporate culture the new company is going to have (Lakshman, 2014). Moreover, achieving this would imply finding the elements of these two cultures that would work best in a new unified corporate culture. However, this would not only be focused on the headquarters office but to other subsidiaries as well by making more effort for keeping them in the loop.
Additionally, the top leadership of this new organization would lay down an effective cultural communication plan as communication responsibility cannot be assigned to the junior-level employees. Therefore, we will put in place a sequential, tactical, and systemic communications plan with a predetermined timeline for complete measurement and integration for gauging the buy-in (Saunders, Altinay & Riordan, 2015). The new company also intends on communicating frequently and regularly by utilizing all the modern techniques and innovations including online platform, web-based forums for employees, and the social media. Importantly, our merged company would attempt in branding the platform for cultural communications with logo icons and lockups.
The merged company would also take a step of elaborating on the new corporate culture by defining the long-term vision, mission, as well as the collective values of our new organization. Moreover, the new company would try hard in becoming as inclusive as possible, providing regular feedback, seeking out opinions in addition to reporting progress at all organizational levels for the purpose of getting it cascaded down into the new company (Saunders, Altinay & Riordan, 2015). Importantly, to demonstrate success and reporting on progress, the merged company would take a step of conducting benchmark research for assessing progress over time and understanding.
Conclusively, it’s not easy for cultural transformation to be successful in mergers environment and therefore should never be taken for granted. It must, thus, become a structured, accountable, and rigorous process. It, therefore, implies that our company would be compelled in working hard in seeking out professional guidance on how to efficiently integrate cultures through an intricate merger.
References
Lakshman, C. (2014). Postacquisition cultural integration in mergers & acquisitions: A knowledge-based approach. Human Resource Management, 50(5), 605-623. doi:10.1002/hrm.20447
Saunders, M. K., Altinay, L., & Riordan, K. (2015). The management of post-merger cultural integration: implications from the hotel industry. Service Industries Journal, 29(10), 1359-1375. doi:10.1080/02642060903026213
Weber, Y., & Tarba, S. Y. (2013). Sociocultural Integration in Mergers and Acquisitions-New Perspectives. Thunderbird International Business Review, 55(4), 327-331. doi:10.1002/tie.21548
Weber, Y., Belkin, T., & Tarba, S. Y. (2016). Negotiation, Cultural Differences, and Planning in Mergers and Acquisitions. Journal Of Transnational Management, 16(2), 107-115. doi:10.1080/15475778.2011.571640
