I agree with Kurt that the firms would not necessarily have to completely blend their cultures. The firms are going to have different values to begin with, and blending them may create just as much tension within the firms than keeping them separate. However, blending the firms somewhat depending on the degree of differences between the cultures is important. If the cultures are somewhat similar, blending wouldn't even be a necessity for the firms. There are also other factors to look at, as Walters et. al. stated, such as language barriers and resistance to foreigners that may be just as important if not more than blending cultures in an alliance.
An example of a cross-border acquisition is Google acquiring YouTube. This was not a successful acquisition. Peng feels that 70% of acquisistions fail, and this amount does seem high until someone considers all of the factors that go into success. Google bought YouTube for $1.65 billion dollars, and YouTube did not have any profits at that time. This amount is quite excessive, and did not help the profits for Google. Other factors that must analyzed are shareholder wealth, due diligence, and different cultures merging. Financial factors such as an increase in NPV and stock price are also important when looking at a cross-border acquisition. If these factors are not all successful, then the company may not improve its value overall with the acquisition. Peng is looking at the big picture and many different factors together when stating that about 70% of the acquisitions fail. However, the acquisition could be successful if just some of these factors have improved.
The manager involved in high engagement entry would have more control over what is going and would have more of a say in the final decisions than the less engaged methods. In addition, these methods reduce the risk to businesses, as well as reduce costs. Other assets can be obtained from these entries, whereas the less engaged modes wouldn't have this advantage. In addition, Peng brings up the idea of managerial motives, where managers would want the high engagement modes for their personal growth in both money and power.
The descriptions of the scope of infractions are very clear in Penn State’s Academic Integrity website. I would say the penalties are in between the range found in the Demirjian article. I do not think Penn State’s penalties are too harsh. If a student has a major offense or repeats a minor offense, they should receive an XF. This would harm their credentials in the future, which it should for these offenses. However, a first minor offense should not receive an XF, and Penn State clearly lays out guidelines for what should be done in these cases. All of the penalties are very fitting to the infractions.
What is fair or just in some instances of plagiarism may not be fair or just in other circumstances. As we have seen in the past, all cases of plagiarism are not the same, and this should be taken into consideration when assigning penalties to students. However, I do think that colleges should have more of a standard on what should be done in cases of plagiarism. At the least, the colleges could all have same minimum and maximum penalties for what should happen to students. The article mentioned that in cases of copyrighted information, there are most likely fines that can reach up to $30,000. I think that fines would help reduce the amount of plagiarism, because if students had to pay for their actions, they would be less likely to plagiarize in the future. Failure of the assignment could be a required minimum penalty for all students, while permanent dismissal could be the maximum.
The employees at Lincoln Electric work really well with their coworkers, but are also competitive in nature. They are driven by incentives and piecework to get the most products made effectively and efficiently. However hard the employees worked each day determined how much they could earn. The employees would also earn an annual bonus based on how well they performed for the company each year. If the employees at LE were not motivated to work hard, they would not last long at this company.
Lincoln Electric definitely had a competitive advantage holding to the U.S. market. The company performed better than others in the industry, which Peng describes as having a competitive advantage. LE had a very high labor efficiency, and were committed to quality and efficiency of work. The merit rating system used for bonuses for the employees really helped to increase the productivity and innovation of the firm.
I agree with Chris and Aleks. Lincoln Electric does treat the employees like co-workers so they more likely to work together to make products for the company. The piece rate allowed employees to earn incentives. Gillespie, the president from the Asia region, believed that the piecework would increase the productivity of the workers. The piecework system did not carry over well to the other cultures, however. This system would also not work well if there were problems with the economy.
All four of the models we have discussed have been useful in different ways. I believe that the CLEAR model was the most useful out of the models we have learned about. Assessing the risk of investing in a country compared to the United States is really useful, especially to investors. This is one of the main things investors look for when trying to decide whether or not to invest in a certain country. The five components that make up the opacity number help to analyze where the risks are coming from specifically. There are still omissions even in this model. More components could be included into the opacity to make the model even more precise. In addition, this model could be globalized so that other countries could assess their own risks about investing in other countries.
The opacity premium or discount is an interest-rate equivalent which comes from carrying out business in one country compared to that of the United States. The difference in the opacity between the country being looked at and the United States is multiplied by 0.2213. This number is based on an inflated Fisher equation. An opacity premium tells the investor how much more he/she will have to invest in a country in order to get the same return in the U.S. An opacity discount signifies how much less the investor can invest and obtain the same return in the U.S. This approach to capturing risks would work well as long as the investor is from the United States and investing in another country. The CLEAR dimensions discussed in the article are used to measure the opacity of the country. These five dimensions are very relevant to potential investors, but there may be other factors, such as accounting, that could also be measured to get even more precise results in the opacity for the countries.
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