17. Совместные предприятия, слияния, поглощения. Процедура оформления. Основные факторы, препятствующие успешному слиянию.

Forms of business activity.

All companies need to introduce new products and services. There are some ways to do it.

1. develop it themselves

2. buy another smaller company with successful products

3. merge with the same company.

Joint venture. Companies agree to collaborate and jointly invest in а business project (allows to combine strengths in оnе specific аrеa) – they remain 2 different companies.

Merger – fusion of corporations in one industry by transfer of all property to a single corporation.

Acquisition оr takeover. A соmрапу acculmulates enough of another company's shares to gain control and ownership.

Reasons for taking over or combining:

• reinforcing your company's position

• reducing competition

• diversifying production

• rationalizing the use of a plant or invested capital

• optimizing products or markets

• searching for synergy (the belief that together the companies will produce more than the sum of the two separate parts)

A company that wants to grow can:

• launch a raid (buy a large quantity of another company's shares on the stock exchange)

• make a takeover bid – a public offer to a company's shareholders to buy their shares, at a particular price during a particular period (a friendly takeover has a consent of the directors of the company/hostile-undertaken against the wishes of the board of directors;

Defences against this -1) poison pill: - change the voting structure of company

• change board of directors

• spend all the company’s cash reserves

2. white knight – to find another buyer whom they prefer

Problems for successful mergers:

• Corporative egos of companies’ CEO’s (sometimes psycho-pathological and even paranoid)

• Difficult to agree on details (headquarters, new company name, etc)

• Unwillingness to compromise

• Poor implementation, especially underestimating the problem of different cultures

18. Категоризация мировых культур: Linear-Active, Multi-Active, Reactive Cultures. Проблемы столкновения культур, принадлежащих к разным категориям.

The several hundred national and regional cultures of the world can be roughly clas­sified into three groups:

• task-oriented, highly organized planners (linear-active);

• people-oriented, loquacious interrelators (multi-active);

• and introverted, respect-oriented listeners (reactive).

Linear-active (Swedes, Swiss, Dutch, Americans and Germans):

• introvert, patient, quiet, plan ahead methodically, job-oriented and unemotional, value punctuality

• do one thing at a time, concentrate hard on that thing and do it within a scheduled time period (consider it more efficient)

• dominated by time-tables, get and verify information from books, statistics

• separate social/ professional

• stick to facts, value fixed agendas

Multi-active (Spaniards, Italians, Greeks, Latin Americans):

• extrovert, impatient, talkative

• not very interested in schedules or punctuality

• do not like to leave conversations unfinished (even if it goes beyond their schedule)

• let one timetable influence another and change plans

• are likely to juggle facts and prefer first-hand oral info

• Emotional and people-oriented

Reactive (Japanese, Koreans, Chinese, Vietnamese, Finns):

• silent, patient, good listeners, prefer to look at general principles, react, punctual

• reacts to partner's timetable

• sees whole picture, makes slight changes, statements considers to be promises

• summarizes well, plans slowly, delegates to reliable people, avoids confrontation, doesn't interrupt, connects social and professional

Enduring misunderstandings arise principally when there is a clash of category rather than nationality.

The ability to interact successfully with foreign partners in the spheres of commercial activity, diplomatic intercourse and scien­tific interchange is seen as increasingly essential and desirable => cross-cultural training is very useful.