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ELK ASIA PACIFIC JOURNAL OF HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT AND ORGANISATIONAL
BEHAVIOUR
ISSN 2349-0409; DOI: 10.16962/EAPJHRMOB/issn. 2349-0409; Volume 4 Issue 2 (2018)
1
www.elkjournals.com
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SYSTEMATIC CASE STUDY RESEARCH: AN AUSTRALIAN
COMPANY WISHES TO EXPAND ITS OPERATIONS TO USA AND
CHINA. Nirmal Acharya
University of Newcastle, Melbourne,
Australia
nirmal.nilu007@gmail.com
Abhishek Sharma
Swinburne University of Technology,
Melbourne, Australia
sharmaabhishek570@gmail.com
ABSTRACT
Abstract: Cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&As) have turned into the prevailing method of development for firms looking for upper hand in an undeniably intricate and worldwide business economy. This paper derives a clear relationship between cross-border alliance and HRM. A case study of an Australian company identified some serious Cultural as well as HRM issues. This study relates literature and established theories to analyse the issues and also proposes a 4-Stage Model for successful cross-border mergers and acquisitions. To conclude, the paper proposes certain necessary recommendations that can enable the future formation of a successful Cross-Border Alliances (CBAs) of an Australian Company. Keywords: Cross Border Alliances M&As, HRM, 4-Stage Model, Australia, USA, China
1. INTRODUCTION
The term “cross-border” means across
borders and across different countries. For a
transaction to take place the minimum
requirement is the constitution of two parties
pursuing mutual interests through sharing
their resources and capabilities (Doz et al.
1998). This may take various forms such as it
can be on making a contract basis within
parties, it can be jointly owned and even a
complete take over. However, the only
Difference that can be stated regarding
national and international mergers or
acquisitions lies in the fact if it crosses the
borders of a country. Each country as a whole
is a mixture of different cultures, different
legal systems and different capital markets.
In this paper, we are studying the case
of a small medium scale Australian enterprise
established in 1954. The company has
planned of getting listed in the Australian
stock exchange by 2015 (Crawley, Swailes,
& Walsh, 2013). The company is a mixture of
ELK ASIA PACIFIC JOURNAL OF HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT AND ORGANISATIONAL
BEHAVIOUR
ISSN 2349-0409; DOI: 10.16962/EAPJHRMOB/issn. 2349-0409; Volume 4 Issue 2 (2018)
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Different cultures and ethics within itself
since it’s a family business backed up by the
Australian culture. However, the company
wishes to expand its operations to USA and
China. The purpose of this paper is to present
a view point and learning through the
different issues of International Human
Resource Management regarding CROSS
BORDER ALLIANCES AND SME’s.
1.1. RESEARCH QUESTION AND
METHODOLOGY
The main research question is: What model
an Australian company should follow to
improve its chance of having a successful
cross-border alliance when expanding to
USA and China?
Yin (2003) defines the case study
research method as an empirical inquiry that
investigates a contemporary phenomenon
within its real-life context. We believe a case
study methodology, based on theoretical
framework developed from literature, would
help us to propose a model for successful
cross-border mergers and acquisitions.
2. BACKGROUND
The passage of time has been showing us
the emergence of cross border alliances and
mergers, the companies are focusing on
expanding to other countries to take over
markets and one of the main objectives of
these companies are to avail the benefit of
rapid entry and keeping minimum cost of
entry in the market (IsoraIte, 2009).
Companies in order to expand to other
countries tend to join hands with another
company of those countries. Sometimes they
acquire 51% of the market shares and take
over the companies and sometimes they work
as partners in alliances (Crawley, Swailes, &
Walsh, 2013). In this paper, the main focus
would be on the alliances happening across
borders and on the small medium based
companies. The human resource department
is highly effected by the cross-border cultures
in various fields. Few issues in that regard
have been mentioned in the following section
of this paper. Joint ventures happen when two
companies jointly operate a business and
satisfy the market. Various issues have been
identified in that regard. The countries
focused are Australia, USA and China. The
cross-cultural values and ethics of workplace
of USA and Australia are same because of
their same practice of work type and ways.
Whereas when compared with China,
Australia has differences in both national
culture and corporate culture. The theories of
Hofstede (1983) and Trompenaars (1996)
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have been used in places to distinguish
between the cultures of these countries. After
discussion of the issues certain necessary
recommendations have been given which
would help the Australian company to have a
successful expansion and a fruitful relation.
3. THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES
FOR HRM-IJV RELATIONSHIPS
To derive a clear relationship between cross-
border alliance and HRM, we focus on
theories like co-operation perspective,
organizational learning and transaction costs.
3.1. CO-OPERATION THEORY
As suggested by Narula and Duysters (2004)
the economy is globalized nowadays, it
suggests many firm to form cooperative
alliances and partners. Cooperation with
other is an important factor when it a firm
focuses on survival and competing in the
global environment, mainly in the industries
which are capital and knowledge intensive.
According to cooperation theory the partners
for cross border alliance should follow
cooperative approach rather than competitive
in order to have a successful venture
relationships (Narula & Hagedoorn, 1999).
3.2. ORGANIZATIONAL LEARNING
THEORY
The perspective of the organizational
learning theory depicts that the learning and
application of new and related knowledge is
facilitated by prior learning (Cohen &
Levinthal, 1990). As per the research done by
Shipton, Dawson, West and Patterson (2002),
they found that organizational learning is
associated with two of five variables i.e.,
quality orientation and the other one is human
resource management. A study done in
Europe demonstrated that the absence of
learning culture, motivation, involvement,
enthusiasm can have negative consequences
on the organizational learning (Sambrook &
Stewart, 2000). On the other hand,
significance difference can be observed in the
organizational culture having developed
learning culture, job redesign, and
organizational re-structure, enthusiasm,
involvement, motivation and involvement in
human resources.
3.3. TRANSCTIONAL COST THEORY
Transaction cost theory expect that business
ventures pick influence structures that cuts
the transaction expenses connected with the
evaluating, monitoring, establishing and
implementing agreed upon exchanges. From
this theory, we can easily understand how
using HR activities by archiving the
governance structure explicit and myriad
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implicit contracts is managed between
employers and employees in cross border
alliance (Schuler & Tarique, 2006). Partners
in cross border alliance should attempt to
create contractual relationship between each
other to diminish their transaction cost yet
they find that country culture influences the
implicit versus explicit contracts.
From the above theories relating to the
International Human Resource Management
the following sub points can be derived:
1. In No matter if the form of cross border
alliance is simple or complex HR
involvement and its implication can be
categorized in similar way for both.
2. If the form of cross border alliance
changes from simple to complex the
influence and significance of HRM
increases.
3. With the increase in number of
countries/ partners in a cross-border
alliance, the involvement of culture will
also increase which in result will
increase the rate of complexity,
differentiation and the strength of
conflict in the system.
In this regard, the significance of HRM can
be seen getting influenced by the cultural
mind set of the different areas across borders
commonly known as cross culture.
4. ISSUES
4.1. CULTURAL ISSUES
One of the major trends of twenty first
century’s business environment is to increase
their business globally (Pinho & Martins,
2010). That enterprise can be small or
medium in size and when companies are
going for alliances with other global
company, that time they faced a very
common cultural issue. According to some
research the management decision and
expectations are highly shaped by their
national culture, which might create some
problem in future for alliances. If a company
is trying to gain their business goals and
services, wherever they are doing businesses,
the management should understand the mean
of different culture.
Cross border alliances create a special
issue that is dominating partner tries to
enforce their personal policies onto other
partners. According to Makino & Beamish
(1998), the US firms always tend to get the
dominating position in alliances. So, when
the Australian company will go for an
alliance with the USA Company, it will face
that problem. These problems are faced
because of cultural differentiation between
the countries and this creates the issues in
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alliance. These issues can rise in between
employees or in between management.
1. National Culture Issue
According to the G. Hofstede (1983) theory,
low power distance countries, people tend to
communicate with their higher authorities in
the decision-making process. Whereas in
high power distance countries, peoples tend
to have a huge gap in communication with the
employees and only higher authorities are
involved in decision making process
(Hofstede G. , 1983). Here in this case, if the
Australian SME company approaches USA
Company for alliance, there would be no
issues regarding compatibility because both
the countries have almost the similar cultures
and both belong to the low power distance
culture. On the other side, they might face
cultural problems in China, because China is
a high-power distance country. So, in China
the Australian management can face cross-
cultural problems. Human thinking and
behavioral effects are highly dependent due
to the cultural differences of different places.
Managing a company is a key point to be
noted down in a society of employees which
is highly influenced by the local historical
and cultural factors of different regions
(DiMaggio & Powell, 1983). The
entrepreneurs are more likely to fall within
the society and hence their attitudes towards
various systems of work are highly
influenced by the values of the society
(Weaver, 2000).
According to G. Hofstede (1983),
high individualistic culture society’s people
tend to look after themselves and their near
relatives. They seem to be less caring when it
comes to other peoples in the society.
Countries like Australia and USA, both are
very highly individualistic in culture,
whereas China is collectivist society. Chinese
people are likely to work in groups rather than
being individualistic. Collectivist culture
seems to play a dominant role in china. In the
real business scenario, employees should be
self-dependent and they should do their own
work. Hiring and promotion decisions should
be always based on the merit and the work
experience, what that employee done in the
previous years (Hofstede G. , 2001).
According to F. Trompenaars (1996),
peoples in some societies try to make their
private and personal lives separate. Their
culture has a very small area of privacy.
These peoples belong to the specific culture
of society. In USA and Australia, there exists
a totally different culture among different
countries (Trompenaars & Hampden-Turner,
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2002) whereas Chinese culture is totally
different. These peoples tend to give more
importance to long term relationship. For
them, there is no difference between personal
and private life. They are very good at
maintaining relationships. These massive
differences in culture may cause the problem
between Australian and Chinese management
after alliance. In terms of risk taking, China is
a country where managers do not want to take
chances on anything being afraid it might go
wrong. Their decision-making process is
slow compared to that of Australia and USA
because in those countries they like to take
challenges and chances though being not sure
about the situational circumstances. Chinese
people don’t dare to make immediate
decisions regarding the company dealings
whereas Australians react fast to any matters.
In Chinese firms, final decisions are taken by
the higher officials without consulting the
subordinated because they are always after
avoiding uncertainty (Graf, Hemmasi, Lust,
& Liang, 1990).
2. Corporate Culture Issue
When a well-known organization
expand their business in a different nation
with a new organization, it attempts to
dominate their own corporate culture, in
which they are familiar. But it is very
important work for a management to create a
new and a single corporate culture in a cross-
border alliance project. According to the
Atlantic times, in Germany, Walmart
management was unable to introduce a new
corporate culture, which was one of the
reasons of their failure in Germany (Schultz,
2006). Corporate culture is formed not by the
technology or market scenario, it is totally
depending on the culture of the employees
and the management. Corporate culture is
also indirectly dependent on Artifacts means
how that company greeted to their visitors,
how employees are rewarded and how
employees are behaving with each other
(O’Donnell & Boyle, 2008). These small
things can affect indirectly to the
organization’s profit maximization and it also
can minimize the brand value of the
company. In the corporate world, comparing
USA and Australia would not be much of a
debate since their work culture is somewhat
similar. Australia belongs to a society where
work life and personal life is highly
distinguished whereas in China the people
mix their personal life with their private life.
Chinese people focus highly on maintaining
relations with the people in order to get the
work done which is termed as GUANXI
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which implies maintaining impersonal
relations with work people, whereas in USA
higher officials allow the members of the
group to learn from each other but does not
support the impersonal relations around the
workplace (Sosik & Dong, 2002). The
Chinese have their own way of addressing
clients, for example, they would ask the
visitor to smoke with them which would be
considered rude if he refuses to. Whereas in
Australia actions like this are not followed at
all. This can also be regarded as a problem in
adjustments
4.2. HUMAN RESOURCE ISSUES
Many HR issues can be raised due to the
formation and implication of a cross border
alliance and that also can have implication for
how the partners will manage their human
resources. Human resource management
practices that support and reinforces the role
behaviors like openness, systematic thinking,
creativity, self- confidence, and empathy can
result in the benefit of the parent and the host
itself (McGill, Slocum Jr., & Lei, 1992). If
the organization i.e., cross border alliance’s
parents and host itself can ensure that their
workers exhibits and possess role behavior
like this, it can support transferring, sharing,
knowledge flow and learning. As a result, it
can help in grounding the implications
(Parkhe, 1991). A clash regarding the
payment of wages and salary might arise due
to difference of opinions of China and
Australia since Australians belong to a
society where workers are used to working
alone and they get paid individually whereas
in China the Chinese workers are more likely
to work in groups and hence when a project
is completed they cannot demand for the
reward alone, they like to share their worth
amongst the group.
5. 4- Stage Model
The issue aroused due to organization and
human resource in cross border alliances
reflects the quality and characteristics of the
organization which are closely associated
with human resources. So, these issues are
very widely affective (Child & Faulkner,
1998). We include those extensive
organizational issues within our discussion of
four stages of cross border alliance. Making
cross-border alliance has four stage model
which includes:
1. Formation
Organizations should need to
understand the several aspects of cross border
alliance so that it can manage the cross-
border alliances successfully. Without proper
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planning, it is very difficult to get benefited
by the formation of cross border alliances, in
other words the change of ripping the gain
will be diminished (Cyr, 1995). To
understand the managerial and cultural style
of parent and Host Company, early planning
is very important and it should be considered
(Loess & Yavas, 2003). HR audit plan
includes analyzing or auditing such qualities
like difference in partner’s culture,
organization and country (Schuler, Jackson,
& Luo, 2004).
Cross border alliance performance,
formation, and its overall performance can be
affected by the quality of cross border
alliance contract negotiations during the
formation of cross border alliance.
2. Development
After the completion of the Formation
stage now several important activities need to
be addressed in the development processed.
Locating the cross-border alliance and
dealing with the local community is one of
the important decision. They may come
across various options for location of the
cross-border alliance and decide whether to
locate it in its partner’s country or any
different country i.e., third country. If they
choose the option of locating the cross-border
alliance in one of its partner’s country then it
may provide them local knowledge and
control advantage. In contrast, if they choose
third country as the preferred location this
may diminish the home field advantage for
either of the companies. However, as there
will be several number of local stakeholders
for example regulators, trade unions, political
officials so it may also increase the
complexity and complications as well as the
need of more information gathering and
broader expertise (Narula & Hagedoorn,
1999).
3. Implementation
Four set of activities are involved in
the implementation stage. To encourage,
support, and reward sharing of knowledge
and learning should be the mission, vision,
value, structure and strategy of the cross-
border alliance (Slocum & Lei, 1993). For the
cross-border alliance, all new set of HR
policy and practices need to be made. The
calculates that these approaches and practices
need to reflect incorporate the cross border
alliance’s: (a) dream, mission, qualities,
society, strategy, structure; (b) requirement
for worldwide integration with parent(s) for
example, for learning exchange; (c) labor
market; and (d) contrasts between the nation
societies of the parent and the host company
(Schuler & Tarique, 2006).On the basics of
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cultural dimension of the countries
participating in cross border alliance the
acceptable form of human resource policy
may vary (Hofstede G. , 1993). Therefore, it
is expected that the more number of countries
included in the cross-border alliance
framework the more variation of HR policies
and practices are expected. Furthermore, the
more noteworthy is that the more contrasts in
the nation’s culture, the implication for HRM
policies and practices are likely to be more
critical (Robson, Leonidou, & Katslkeas,
2002).
Many HR issues can be exposed, once
the cross-border alliance is completely set up.
These issues include: time spending pattern
of the manager, work assigned to the
managers, evaluation of the top management,
managing career and benefit planning, and
loyalty issue (Zeira & Shenkar, 1990).
4. Advancement
The advancement stage of the cross-
border alliance includes transferring the
knowledge to other location as well as to
partners and learning from the partners. As
per the research done by Luo (2000), the key
to premature dissolution avoidance and
longevity of cross border alliance is learning
and adjustment by the partners. In general,
mechanism for learning and data exchange
that might be utilized includes top
administration help, staff training and
development, staff rotation, site visits,
recognition and rewards, repatriation
management (Cyr, 1995).Once more, the
more national culture involved as well as the
more parents there are the more difficult this
is likely to be for the implication of the HR
policies and practices.
6. RECOMMENDATIONS
6.1. RESEARCH ON SUBSIDIARY
COUNTRY’S CULTURE
For the company to run their subsidiary in the
USA and China, the necessary thing is to
understand the American and Chinese culture
dimension. According to the Suutari &
Brewster (1998), if the management starts
thinking like the ways locals are, then it will
be very easy to rectify the issues and failure.
The Australian management of the company
has to learn and adapt the global culture, so
that they can deal with the other culture’s
people.
Cross culture research is a scientific
research, which helps the organization to
compare the cultures between the different
nations. Now to do the research on culture of
the USA and China, that Australia Company
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can appoint a professional research team.
Through this they can get the basic
knowledge of the USA and China’s local
business policy and employee’s culture. It
establishes the essential framework for the
company to create the rules for the
recruitment of the American and Chinese
representative, and also a reason to make a
relationship with the local organization
(Bhattacharyya, 2010). Likewise appoint
some more professional from the USA and
China for that research, will add an extra
advantage to know their culture and policy.
This will also be an effective and easy method
to understand the other nation’s culture. From
the research, it can be seen that USA and
Australia follow the same guidelines
regarding their recruitment and employment,
which is no one gets to join based on good
relations. A person has to prove his worth in
order to get employed. And since the
Australian Company refuses to even take
members from the family it would be a
recommended to give away the guidelines to
the Chinese workers who are more relation
oriented to set up their mind and prepare
themselves to prove themselves. Since
Australian and the American workers would
not be having much of a difference in views
hence no such recommendations are needed
for the running of the business in USA.
However, in China for Australia to fructify
their business they have to send their own
managers to take over the group of people
from China and aware them of the cultural
ways to handle business the Australian way.
Since the Chinese managers would be trained
beforehand during their education it would be
a bit easier for them to understand their ways
of working. Whereas the less educated
workers from the factories should be given
the basic knowledge of what to do and what
no to do to retain their employment since
Australians take competency levels to be the
most prioritized thing.
6.2. CROSS CULTURAL TRANING
When the company start recruiting people
from the USA and China, after that they
have to give some cultural training to them.
So that they can work together with
Australian. The cultural training and
interactive session can help them to
understand the culture of two different
nations and it will also create a positive
work culture in the workshop.
Cross cultural training on host
country’s language for management and
higher authorities are also important things,
which create a good relationship between the
management and employees. According to
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the Ashamalla (1998), cross cultural training
should be accompanied by the foreign
language training, because knowledge of the
host country’s language will help employees
and management to stay and work in host
country (Haniggan, 1990). Knowledge of
local language helps to reduce the
misunderstanding between the coworkers and
the management people. According to some
author fluency in language can improve
effectiveness and negotiating ability
(Dowling, 2005) (Haniggan, 1990).
Training plays a fundamental part in
encouraging attitude of employees and
management. For example, it is very
important for some time to work together as
a group, which increases the productivity of
the workshop. So, change the culture of the
USA employees or vice versa of Chinese
employees training is the only process which
can change the attitude of employees. At the
same time, Chinese management also should
improve their ability to share the information
with their subordinate (Hofstede G. , 1983).
Along with the training of the language and
the other related to communication, proper
knowledge about the time difference of the
places should be there. Sometime due to
different time zone problems are created.
Special trainers from both the parties should
be sent to the opposite parties to give them the
introduction of the work place as well as their
rule and guidelines of the country so that
when any representative sent to the related
countries does not face any issues (Murphy,
2005).
6.3. INTEGRATED STRATEGIES INTO
THE USA AND CHINA
The head quarter country should always
follow the system or strategy for the host
country which controlled by the host
country’s management (Trompenaars F. ,
1996).Respecting to the company’s
management model, the administrative
system should be formulated based on the
host country’s culture. The strategy to get the
benefit from the host country’s culture by
treating it as an enhancement rather than a
risk (Bhattacharyya, 2010). The Australian
company’s management should follow a
proper strategy to gain competitive advantage
from both the host country, the USA and
China.
Another point that can be put to light
is that Chinese employees are rewarded for
their group work, not like Australia or the
USA where individual work is praised by the
management. Therefore, Australian
company’s management should set a
different type of reward system for Chinese
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employees (Trompenaars & Hampden-
Turner, 1997). The motivation system should
be adapted with different cultures because the
office environment differs in different
countries. To keep the Chinese workers
motivated, groups treat or a vocational treat
should be given to get them relaxed after a big
job. In USA, however a raise in the salary
would satisfy the workers because of their
universalism.
6.4. ESTABLISHING A SINGLE
CORPORATE CULTURE
Maintaining a single corporate culture
is very important for any newly Alliance
Company, because in some culture people
give more value to family and in some
society, they give value to their hard work or
merit. So, this can create a conflict between
employees and management as well.
According to the employees thinking,
learning and how employees can motivate
and resolve clashes based on that researcher
divided the corporate culture in four parts
(Trompenaars & Hampden-Turner, 1997).
Those are 1) The family, 2) The Eiffel tower,
3) The guided missile and 4) The incubator.
So, based on the country’s environment,
organization should implement the corporate
culture. Company like Walmart in USA is
very successful in employee relationship
because of their single corporate culture.
Their employees and management both are
very strict to maintain the corporate culture of
their company (Kampf, 2007).
According to the Trompenaars &
Hampden-Turner (1997), there are three
aspects of corporate structure which regulate
the corporate culture:
1. The relationship between the
company and their employees,
2. The hierarchical system of authority,
which describe the bosses and juniors.
3. The view of employees about the
company’s goal and purpose and their
role in it.
6.5. ESTABLISHING EFFECTIVE HR
POLICY AND PRACTICES
Characteristics which include personality,
loyalty, cultural similarity and skills can have
impact on the success of the cross-border
alliance. It can be a very important
contribution of human resource management
that can insure section based on those
characteristics and in addition to that they
should be supported and rewarded. In
establishing an appropriate structure as both
parents are interested in the success of the
cross border alliance, as the part of
negotiation both of the team need to involve
in key decision making (Arino & Reuer,
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2004).To make the HR policies and practices
effective for local adaption in the
implementation stage more development
should be left with the host company but on
the other hand it may not be effective for
global integration, parents and learning
transfer (Child & Faulkner, 1998). Therefore,
high quality managers need to develop HR
policy and practices considering the
sensitivity of the parents. Possibly some
policies like environmental standard, ethics
and safety should meet the parent standard
whereas other policies such as benefits,
compensation and working hours can be
adaptable locally. For Australians, the
working environment is set as for the hours of
work they should do in a day so if such a
representative is sent to China where the
employees focus more on completing the
work and not the usual working hours, the
person might face problems regarding that.
Hence suitable working hours should be set
for both the parties so that there could be a
harmony amongst then to work together.
CONCLUSIONS
Thermal fatigue behavior of plasma sprayed
YSZ from the above assessment, it can be
concluded that Alliances happen when a
company goes into a contract of joining with
another country and when this happen across
different borders of the countries it is called
Cross Border Alliances. We talked about
Small and Medium Scale entities and their
relative problems surrounding the human
resource department. The company here is an
Australian SME company planning to expand
their operations in USA and China. In that
regard, we discussed about the probable
problems that might take place in cross
border alliances because there is a varied
influence of cultures in the national
environment as well as the corporate working
environment. The basic problems that have
been mentioned here are the problems
regarding the national culture, which say that
if Australia wants to alliance with USA they
would not be facing much problems because
they both follow the same culture. Whereas if
Australia goes to China for this alliance their
view would clash since China follows a
different culture all together. The Second
Issue is of the corporate working culture
which can also be of clash between China and
Australia because the working culture of
Chinese employees is totally different than
that to Australians which are Chinese people
like to work in groups and Australian like
working alone. Both these issues have been
backed up by the Hofstede and Trompenaars
ELK ASIA PACIFIC JOURNAL OF HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT AND ORGANISATIONAL
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14
theories of Culture. The Third Issue is the
Human Resource Issue which again states the
difference of working between China and
Australia in respect to the acceptance of
rewards for completion of work. In Australia,
due to the individualistic attitude they tend to
work alone and would only accept the reward
individual. Whereas in China due to the
collectivist type of working environment the
employees work in groups and they would
only accept rewards if given to the whole
group. The Chinese also practice etiquettes
like smoking and drinking with the clients
during meetings and if a person refuses to
then that is considered as rudeness, whereas
in Australia no such practice is done so this is
another point where a clash can take place. In
the regard of these issues, some
recommendations are given which if put to
light would help the company to have a
successful alliance with both the countries.
LIMITATIONS
Some limitations of this study are the
following:
1. This paper is built on only one case
study of an Australian Company.
Furthermore, the authors feel that for
Australia, these factors hold good
anywhere in the nation for alliances of
SMEs.
2. We dealt the firm in its own
individual setting. The effects of any
clusters and associated social network
relationships on the alliance was not
considered.
3. Further confirmatory studies could
be done based on survey.
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