The Impact Of Cross Cultural Differences On BenQ's Acquisition Of Siemens Mobile Division

With the accelerated development of the worldwide economic integration and globalization and the impulse of China's "going out" policy, Chinese companies are going global through a series of cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&As). However, in spite of an increasing number of cross-border M&As, many cases have shown that most of the cross-border M&As failed to achieve their expected goals, confronted with a lot of risks. According to the studies on M&As, most failures were caused by the cultural differences. It is worth studying how the cultural differences affect M&As, how significant the cross cultural management is and how to manage the cultural differences effectively.This study is to focus on the cross-border merger of BenQ and Siemens Mobile and give an analysis on the influence of Sino-German cultural differences, aiming at demonstrating the main influence on cross-border M&A caused by Chinese and western cultures, emphasizing the significance and urgency to carry on the cross-border cultural management.This paper is composed of six parts. Chapter 1 is an introduction of the study and its methods. Chapter 2 is a literature review of the theories on corporate culture and M&A culture, summarizing the characteristics of the Chinese and western cultures.In Chapter 3 an overview of the case is introduced, including the macro environment of the case, the situation of M&A in China, the background, the process and the status quo of the merger, and the feedbacks to this case home and abroad. In Chapter 4 an analysis of BenQ and Siemens with regard to each background, goal of the merger and corporate culture is given. Chapter 5 offers a study on the impacts leading to the failure of the merger, which are caused by the Chinese and German cultural differences according to the relevant theories of corporate culture. Chapter 6 gives a conclusion to the merger and provides with some recommendations.