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Transcultural Synergy assist businesses involved in cross-border acquisitions, joint ventures or strategic alliances with their post merger integration challenges that arise from the differing organisational and national cultures. Our aim is to maximise human potential in transnational collaboration.
We also assist companies solve cross-cultural challenges
in international transfers, expatriation and general mobility issues, as
well as in multi-national marketing and business development. Our strengths
are working with European & Asian companies seeking better client &
staff relations transcending cultural differences.
MISSION
Our Mission is:
We believe that:
OUR PHILOSOPHY
There are many integration consultancies who focus on the merging of corporate cultures in the case of mergers or alliances, often under the banner of Organisational Development (the group corporate counterpart of Personal Development). They use a variety of techniques and models to achieve their goals. Various disciplines play a part, including Conflict Resolution. In most cases they are concerned with domestic mergers
Many of the approaches, however, are not suitable in an international arena, as they have been developed in one particular culture. For example, the open confrontational approach to conflict resolution, which works well in Anglo-Saxon countries, does not work at all in collectivist societies where group ownership is valued over individual blame. The principles of change management are often not effective, partly because of different concepts of management and change, and partly because each culture have established approaches of dealing with change, and the approaches themselves can clash in a cross-border situation. Forcing one approach can cause perceived dominance, resentment and often top talent flight. For this reason, in cross-border alliances, many of the corporate culture approaches are less effective.
To deal with this issue we bring the knowldege and experience of cross-cultural communication. Looking at the national cultures of the merged organisation enables us to understand the context in which the organisation operate. The national cultures normally mean the countries where the separate entities were head-quartered, though in an increasingly networked, "mesh globalised", transnational organsition, many more cultures need to be considered. Although we cannot change national culture, and it does make sense to work on merging the corporate cultures, this MUST be done in context of the cultures involved and using tools, concepts and methods which are appropriate and acceptable to both all the cultures involved.
What we do there is a blend of business sociology (organisation culture) and businss anthropology (national or ethnic culture). Our approach is somewhat unique, and one could say, still in an experimental stage, simply our approach has no forefathers we can go to for advice. We have a rich background in terms of the various components, but there are few people or organisations who are attempting two blend the various disciplines in this way.
So far most cross-cultural work, in the corporate environment, has tended to focus on the training of individuals who were involved in international mobility, relocation or just exporting. The field, which represents our own roots, is making a major contribution to the globalisation of corporations in that respect. However we believe that with the internet, virtual working, the growing pace of change across the globe, that increasingly focussing on just expatriation, on exporting, and on the training of individuals is not enough. Increasingly cross-border alliances are increasing as an alternative to exporting or expatriation, and this requires the merging and collaboration of whole groups of people - virtually, i.e. without their necessarily having to move. Increasing we saw a need to apply cross-cultural principles to the organisational dynamics, not just individuals.
We have therefore chosen to pursue this path. We can best distinguish our approach in the following figure:
| Most Cross-Cultural Services | Transcultural Synergy Focus | |
| Exports, Overseas Transplants | International Mergers & Alliances | |
| Mobility, Relocation, Expatriation | Virtual Working, interaction but no displacement | |
| Focus on Individuals (skills, competencies) | Focus on Group Dynamics (collective behaviour) | |
| Training, Coaching | Consulting (group facilitation, counselling) |
In short,
our focus is on transnational alliances where more people are interacting
and working virtually across the globe but with fewer individual displacements.
Our focus is also on the integration of whole groups and establishing a common
culture acceptable and workable to all. Hence in the first instance our approach
is a consulting one (with a classic audit - plan - implementation approach)
rather than training individuals. From our work training needs arise which
we establish, but in order to maintain our focus on the integration consulting
side, we now outsource training to respectable training providers.
OUR APPROACH
In light of the above, we use European, US and Japanese
culture models to help define merger cultures. As the cross-cultural field
grows to other parts of the world and generates new research and new models,
we shall endevour to make them part of our repertoire. Our focus is on potential conflict areas - we take a preventative
approach to work out differences
We
beleive that cross-border Mergers, alliances and Joint-Venture integration
should primarily be handled as process consulting, in order to adopt solutions
to actual situation, rather than off-the-shelf training. Hence we have moved
away from training and focus on process consultancy - though we do make use
of similations to assist people in finding their own cross-border solutions.
It is very important to pay attention to negative feelings and a limbo stage in the early days, espececially in an acquisistion. While a lot of this is generated by lack of communication, which is often due to lack of knowledge or decisions, we believe the Kaizen approach can be applied at whatever stage of the integration process. The Kaizen approach is a holistic continuous improvement approach which all, bottom up, to make improvements within their area of operation, and thereby, in a small way contribute to the new organisation. More importantly it instills pride and a sense of ownership in the process,which if managed well will boost morale, whatever the circumstances of the integration process.
It is important to note that while
we have grouped cross-border mergers, acquisitions, alliances, joint-ventures,
technology transfers
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© Transcultural Synergy |
Fax: +44 (0)70 9237 0950 |
Tel: +44 (0)20 8755 5824 |