Gung Ho Negotiation Conflict Resolution Mergers Acquisitions

GUNG HO

Negotiation Conflict Resolution Mergers Acquisitions You required obtain Gung Ho film, locate case articles mergers acquisitions literature, prepare a paper analyze typical leadership dilemmas conflicts occur organizations merge.

Gung Ho!: Communication complications in the wake of corporate mergers

It is an often-cited truism that if you want to seem to have great fortune-telling abilities, it is wise to predict that a corporate merger is bound to fail. The reasons for the failure of mergers to create promised added value for shareholders or employees are numerous, but one of the most common sources of conflict is a conflict of organizational cultures. As illustrated in the film Gung Ho!, cultural conflicts become even more acute when they involve a clash of national as well as corporate work cultures. According to the authors of the study "Assimilation of quality culture and its effect: An empirical study of a cross-border M&A" (Ito, Toshihiko, & Fujimura 2009) integrating corporate cultures is one of the most significant determinants as to whether a merger fails or succeeds. The authors of the study give particular attention to the Japanese notion of 'quality culture,' or organizational assumptions about the best way to ensure a consistent, high-quality product. The Japanese zeal for perfection and quality detailed in the article echoes the 1986 film Gung Ho!, which satirizes the incommensurability of Japanese and American views of the workplace.

Organizational culture is defined as "a pattern of basic assumptions -- invented, discovered, or developed by a given group as it learns to cope with its problems of external adaptation and internal integration" (Ito, Toshihiko, & Fujimura 2009: 1). In the film, a powerful Japanese automotive company acquires a failing American facility. This acquisition is willing, given that representatives from the American plant go over to Japan to convince the company to come over to the U.S. However, the Americans have no idea how to relate to the Japanese executives. When Hunt Stevenson, played by Michael Keaton, travels over to Japan to speak to the board of directors, he makes loud and boisterous small talk and inappropriate sexual jokes, clumsily tries to create a connection between himself and the executives in a personal fashion, and asks if they speak English. All of this suggests a lack of 'homework' on the part of Hunt which the Japanese clearly expected him to do. Furthermore, his familiar attitude is not in keeping with the high-context culture of Japan, in which hierarchies and duties based upon status are expected to be obeyed. However, the Japanese executives are equally tone-deaf to the corporate culture of America. They try to force American workers to do calisthenics and place no value upon individualism and insight after the merger takes place.