Cultural differences, convergence, and crossvergence as explanations of knowledge transfer in international acquisitions

Riikka M Sarala and Eero Vaara
Additional contact information
Riikka M Sarala: Department of Business Administration, Bryan School of Business and Economics, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Greensboro, USA
Eero Vaara: [1] Department of Management and Organization, Hanken School of Economics, Helsinki, Finland[2] EM Lyon Business School, Strategy & Organization, Lyon, France

Journal of International Business Studies, 2010, vol. 41, issue 8, 1365-1390

Abstract: In spite of the proliferation of research on cultural differences in international mergers and acquisitions, we lack systematic analyses of the impact of cultural factors on knowledge transfer. In this paper, we argue that both national and organizational cultural differences and cultural integration in the form of cultural convergence and crossvergence affect knowledge transfer in acquisitions. We develop specific hypotheses concerning the nature of these effects, and test our hypotheses with data on international acquisitions carried out by Finnish corporations. The analyses performed show that national cultural differences provide great potential for knowledge transfer in international acquisitions. Furthermore, organizational cultural convergence and crossvergence have a significant positive impact on knowledge transfer. In particular, convergence and crossvergence moderate the impact of national cultural differences on knowledge transfer.

Date: 2010
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (77)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.palgrave-journals.com/jibs/journal/v41/n8/pdf/jibs200989a.pdf Link to full text PDF (application/pdf)
http://www.palgrave-journals.com/jibs/journal/v41/n8/full/jibs200989a.html Link to full text HTML (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:jintbs:v:41:y:2010:i:8:p:1365-1390

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... nt/journal/41267/PS2

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of International Business Studies is currently edited by John Cantwell

More articles in Journal of International Business Studies from Palgrave Macmillan, Academy of International Business
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().