Riassunti per orale inglese

Why international mergers often fail

1. Why do companies merge? What do they hope to achieve?

2. What are the typical things that go wrong in mergers and acquisitions?

3. What can company do to try to ensure success in international mergers?

In corporate finance, mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are transactions in which the ownership of companies, other business organizations, or their operating units are transferred or consolidated with other entities. As an aspect of strategic management, M&A can allow enterprises to grow or downsize, and change the nature of their business or competitive position.

From a legal point of view, a merger is the consolidation of two entities into one, whereas an acquisition occurs when one entity takes ownership of another entity's stock, equity interests or assets. A transaction legally structured as an acquisition may have the effect of placing indirect ownership of one party's business.

To a person or organization that can be used for the payment of debts:

Liability = responsibility of a person, business, or organization to pay or give up something of value

The art of joining different cultures - summary:

This article talks about causes of success and failure of mergers and acquisitions. They are a good opportunity to cut costs, increase profits, and benefit from another company's knowledge and experience. Despite all these opportunities, only a few of them are able to reach their aims. This happens because of governance issues, but also cultural issues, for example underestimating the difficulties in integrating two different companies and tight timeframes. (Also different work practices) So, in order to succeed, it's essential to have a strong governance and clear aims, and employees have to be prepared for change.

Melissa Lecini Rescuing a merger that's going wrong U9 Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise, is a French software company, providing

enterprisecommunication services.The rst telephone was produced by Alcatel in 1999.It was originally a division of Compagnie G n rale d'Electricit , later known as Alcatel,and then as Alcatel-Lucent.Alcatel-Lucent spun o the division, on 1 October 2014, to Chinese company ChinaHuaxin Post and Telecommunication Economy Development Center (later renamed ChinaHuaxin Post and Telecom Technologies), which bought 85% of its shares for 202 millioneuros (US$254 million), with Alcatel-Lucent keeping a 15% share.ALE International continued to use the Alcatel-Lucent brand name, now licensed fromNokia, which purchased Alcatel-Lucent in 2015.In 2015, at the time of the Nokia acquisition, ALE International had 2,700 employees,500,000 clients, and revenues of 700 million euros.

Can new CEO end culture clash after merger? - Summary

The article is about the problem of integration between di erent cultures after amerger or acquisition.Di erent consultants tried to give an advice to resolve this

To face this issue, first of all, a CEO should face and accept cultural differences among employees and turn them into a competitive advantage.

Secondly, the CEO could create a new culture to improve performance and demonstrate the new way of behaving.

Thirdly, staff has to agree on the vision of the company.

Then it's very important to create a communications plan, agreed by everyone, to keep stakeholders consistently informed and about positive changes to create a common culture.

In this way, cultural problems will not be an obstacle, but they become a strength for the company.

International assignments

An international assignment is an overseas task set by a company to a good employee. An international assignment exposes and enhances assignees' cross-cultural skills and knowledge, lets them develop new leadership potential, and exposes them to new ideas, making them stronger employees in the future.

The most common reason reported for assignment failure was insufficient organizational

support during the assignment, including inadequate or in exible assignment policies, insu cient preparation and settling-in support, poor dual-career support, inadequate company communication.ff fi ff fi ff ffi é é é ff ffi ff flMelissa LeciniFrom a company’s perspective, what are the bene ts of sending1. employees on international assignments? What are the disadvantages?

Advantages-> the bene ts for the company are many; people expert in speci c eld can share their skills/knowledge around the world. Bene ts are learning a new culture, a new language, learning di erent POVs, learning new prospective, but of course it is di cult and challenging.

Disadvantages-> not everyone is ready and prepared to live in another country, with a completely di erent culture and language (e.g. in China, in Japan), and others might discover that it is harder than expected.

International assignments: challenges and opportunities—summary

The article is about the importance of working abroad

For a certain period of time and its obstacles. Nowadays working abroad is fundamental and a strategic necessity to gain experience from emerging markets, which are going to be the next economic powers of the world. However, convincing people to go abroad is not easy. Persuading them is a battle, because the personal side and the professional one come into conflict.

In addition, international mobility is a huge expense for the company. Another issue is that many of those who come back after an international experience leave the company because executives do not allow them to advance in careers. To avoid this, you have to reward who is willing to work abroad.

International assignments

U11trailing spouse

The term is used to describe a person who follows his or her life partner to another city because of a work assignment. The term is often associated with people involved in an expatriates assignment but is also used by academia on domestic assignment.

The number of expatriates working abroad is probably

increasing because international assignment are increasing. It is hard for the training spouse because at at beginning it can feel left behind or even isolated if they are in an isolated city where they don't know anyone and don't speak the language. In fact there could be a trailing spouse syndrome, it involves the feeling of resentment and doubt as a result of the partner sacrificing his/her career.

No place like home - summary

This article is about the life of a trailing spouse Stuart and his family. Stuart follows his partners business career around the globe. Fortunately Stuart has managed to find employment and clients everywhere the family has moved but not all trailing spouses are so lucky. In fact only 20% of trailing spouse is able to find employment while abroad.

So the lack of work combined with leaving family, friends, the cultural shock can make the trailing spouses miserable. To avoid this managers, before relocating an employee, should take into consideration the employees

Melissa Lecini Working in virtual teams

U13virtual teamA (or remote teams or smart working) is a group of people who work together with a common purpose but are not located in the same place (with a different time zone). It may be a team of employees who work in different offices, or people who work from their homes.

The appeal of forming virtual teams is clear. Employees can manage their work and personal lives more flexibly, and they have the opportunity to interact with colleagues around the world. Companies can use the best and lowest-cost global talent and significantly reduce their real estate costs...but virtual teams are hard to get right!

Some of the limitations may be the time zone, so you have a limited range of hours that you can use to communicate with these people, another aspect is that you have to deal with people from other cultures. However, these can be also everyday situations, if you work in an office with people from other countries.

The article is about the importance of trust between members of virtual teams. Trust is more difficult to build in teams that never see each other, rather than in teams that work face-to-face every day. That's why members of virtual teams should meet face-to-face at the beginning to build trust more quickly.

Five basic principles for making a virtual team work:

1. Get the team together physically early on (meet and know each other at the beginning).
2. Clarify tasks and processes, not just goals and roles.
3. Agree on a shared language (English is the lingua franca).
4. Foster (promote, encourage) shared leadership.
5. Commit (invest, engage) to communication.

Part of the problem is that people think that trust will come automatically, but studies about successful teams say that it needs to be built.

In addition, they should agree on some rules about how to behave and communicate with each other. For example, responding to emails within a fixed timeframe.

time or sending encouraging messages, because encouragement is fundamental among the team.

team leader

It is also important to have a that sums up significant information from the conversations that he has with every member of the team and he can try to get and share information about the culture and country of the foreign members.

Melissa Lecini A mixed-culture workforce

In the 21st-century workplace, sta can come from all over the world. Fusing a multicultural workforce into an effective team is often challenging, but success has many benefits. Multicultural businesses often have an edge dealing with customers from other cultures. Diversity can also be healthier for your c