The international match: Metaphors as vehicles of social identity building in cross-border mergers

Eero Vaara, Janne Tienari and Risto Santti
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Eero Vaara: EM - EMLyon Business School

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Abstract: This article focuses on cultural identity-building in the cross-border merger context. To provide an alternative to the dominant essentialist analyses of cultures and cultural differences, cultural identitybuilding is conceptualized as a metaphoric process. The focus is on two processes inherent in the cross-border merger context: construction of images of Us and Them and construction of images of a Common Future. Based on an analysis of a special metaphor exercise carried out in a recent Finnish–Swedish merger, the article illustrates how the metaphoric perspective reveals specific cognitive, emotional and political aspects of cultural identity-building that easily remain ‘hidden' in the case of more traditional approaches.

Date: 2003-04-01
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Published in Human Relations, 2003, 56 (4), pp.419-451 P

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-02311681

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