Cultural differences and capability transfer in cross-border acquisitions: the mediating roles of capability complementarity, absorptive capacity, and social integration

This paper presents an integrative model of the impact of cultural differences on capability transfer in cross-border acquisitions. We propose that cultural differences affect the post-acquisition capability transfer through their impact on social integration, potential absorptive capacity, and capability complementarity. Two dynamic variables – the use of social integration mechanisms, and the degree of operational integration of the acquired unit – are proposed to moderate the effects of cultural differences on social integration and potential absorptive capacity. The implications for acquisition research and practice are discussed.

Cross-Border Competence Management in Emerging Markets: Voices from China and Russia

This book is on cross-border competence management in Russia and China. Corporations are facing a number of problems and challenges in their international operations, to which there typically are no simple solutions. For instance, they need to understand and respond to cultural and institutional diversity and ascertain that their foreign units are integrated with the rest of the corporation. Throughout this report we will discuss a range of challenges confronting firms as they seek to develop their capabilities to operate internationally. Some of the challenges are clearly case specific, and although this book aims to offer research-based advice to practicing managers there is a potential danger in applying lessons from other companies to the own firm. Our hope is that our analyses of the challenges facing Finnish corporations in China and Russia reported together with extensive quotes from our interviews and insights from other recent studies will help readers draw their own conclusions as to how to deal with issues related to competence management across borders. With this book we also aspire to contribute to the academic literature by providing new insights into cross-border competence management in general and the operations of Finnish corporations in Russia and China in particular.

On the Narrative Construction of Multinational Corporations: An Antenarrative Analysis of Legitimation and Resistance in a Cross-Border Merger

Although extant research has highlighted the role of discourse in the cultural construction of organizations, there is a need to elucidate the use of narratives as central discursive resources in unfolding organizational change. Hence, the objective of this article is to develop a new kind of antenarrative approach for the cultural analysis of organizational change. We use merging multinational corporations (MNCs) as a case in point. Our empirical analysis focuses on a revelatory case: the financial services group Nordea, which was built by combining Swedish, Finnish, Danish, and Norwegian corporations. We distinguish three types of antenarrative that provided alternatives for making sense of the merger: globalist, nationalist, and regionalist (Nordic) antenarratives. We focus on how these antenarratives were mobilized in intentional organizational storytelling to legitimate or resist change: globalist storytelling as a means to legitimate the merger and to create MNC identity, nationalist storytelling to relegitimate national identities and interests, Nordic storytelling to create regional identity, and the critical use of the globalist storytelling to challenge the Nordic identity. We conclude that organizational storytelling is characterized by polyphonic, stylistic, chronotopic, and architectonic dialogisms and by a dynamic between centering and decentering forces. This paper contributes to discourse-cultural studies of organizations by explaining how narrative constructions of identities and interests are used to legitimate or resist change. Furthermore, this analysis elucidates the dialogical dynamics of organizational storytelling and thereby opens up new avenues for the cultural analysis of organizations.

Liquid Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry in Studies of Drug Metabolism and Permeability

Poor pharmacokinetics is one of the reasons for the withdrawal of drug candidates from clinical trials. There is an urgent need for investigating in vitro ADME (absorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion) properties and recognising unsuitable drug candidates as early as possible in the drug development process. Current throughput of in vitro ADME profiling is insufficient because effective new synthesis techniques, such as drug design in silico and combinatorial synthesis, have vastly increased the number of drug candidates. Assay technologies for larger sets of compounds than are currently feasible are critically needed. The first part of this work focused on the evaluation of cocktail strategy in studies of drug permeability and metabolic stability. N-in-one liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC/MS/MS) methods were developed and validated for the multiple component analysis of samples in cocktail experiments. Together, cocktail dosing and LC/MS/MS were found to form an effective tool for increasing throughput. First, cocktail dosing, i.e. the use of a mixture of many test compounds, was applied in permeability experiments with Caco-2 cell culture, which is a widely used in vitro model for small intestinal absorption. A cocktail of 7-10 reference compounds was successfully evaluated for standardization and routine testing of the performance of Caco-2 cell cultures. Secondly, cocktail strategy was used in metabolic stability studies of drugs with UGT isoenzymes, which are one of the most important phase II drug metabolizing enzymes. The study confirmed that the determination of intrinsic clearance (Clint) as a cocktail of seven substrates is possible. The LC/MS/MS methods that were developed were fast and reliable for the quantitative analysis of a heterogenous set of drugs from Caco-2 permeability experiments and the set of glucuronides from in vitro stability experiments. The performance of a new ionization technique, atmospheric pressure photoionization (APPI), was evaluated through comparison with electrospray ionization (ESI), where both techniques were used for the analysis of Caco-2 samples. Like ESI, also APPI proved to be a reliable technique for the analysis of Caco-2 samples and even more flexible than ESI because of the wider dynamic linear range. The second part of the experimental study focused on metabolite profiling. Different mass spectrometric instruments and commercially available software tools were investigated for profiling metabolites in urine and hepatocyte samples. All the instruments tested (triple quadrupole, quadrupole time-of-flight, ion trap) exhibited some good and some bad features in searching for and identifying of expected and non-expected metabolites. Although, current profiling software is helpful, it is still insufficient. Thus a time-consuming largely manual approach is still required for metabolite profiling from complex biological matrices.

The paribhasas arthavadgrahane nanarthakasya, laksanapratipadoktayoh pratipadoktasyaiva grahanam and ekadesavikrtam ananyavat : Studies on some Metarules in Paninian system

In his grammatical treatise, the Astadhyayi, Panini includes sutras that state guiding rules for the right interpretation and application of his other directly grammatical sutras. These sutras are called paribhasas. In addition to these paribhasas, the various commentaries on Panini frequently invoke supplementary paribhasas which are not stated explicitly in his Astadhyayi. These paribhasas have been a subject of study since early times after Panini and have also occupied modern scholars on Panini s grammar. In regard to most of them, it remains unsettled even today whether they are used in the Astadhyayi, where they apply, what is their role, and whether they are necessary in arriving at the desired grammatical form. Some scholars go even further and argue that none of such paribhasas were intended by Panini. This study aims to settle this question by dealing with three such of these paribhasas individually considering all the information available in the commentaries in their regard and examining the cases in which, according to commentaries, the paribhasas apply. I select the paribhasas arthavadgrahane nanarthakasya, laksanapratipadoktayoh pratipadoktasyaiva grahanam and ekadesavikrtam ananyavat, which are all considered nyayasiddha or lokanyayasiddha; they express logical and obvious principles which are found in daily life. On this basis, Paniniyas explain why Panini did not mention them in the Astadhyayi. I discuss each paribhasa separately and all the issues it involves. I present and explain the cases where the specified paribhasas are invoked in the major commentaries, the Mahabhasya, the Kasika and the Siddhantakaumudi and the arguments found in the commentaries concerning these cases. If available, I supply other solutions to the difficulties for which these paribhasas are invoked. The study aims to make the issue of these paribhasas clearer, which will help us to reach a solution to the key question, that is, whether Panini has presupposed them in his Astadhyayi. My study shows that Panini has presupposed the paribhasa ekadesavikrtam ananyavat (or a similar principle). He also may have used the paribhasa arthavadgrahane nanarthakasya (or a similar principle) as this paribhasa does not lead to undesired results. As for the paribhasa laksanapratipadoktayoh pratipadoktasyaiva grahanam (or a similar principle), the original scope of this paribhasa was clearly extended by later Paniniyas. Moreover, their interpretation of this paribhasa conflicts with Panini s procedure. If Panini has used this paribhasa, he has used it in a very limited way.

Agreement Patterns in English : Diachronic Corpus Studies on Common-Number Pronouns

This study reports a diachronic corpus investigation of common-number pronouns used to convey unknown or otherwise unspecified reference. The study charts agreement patterns in these pronouns in various diachronic and synchronic corpora. The objective is to provide base-line data on variant frequencies and distributions in the history of English, as there are no previous systematic corpus-based observations on this topic. This study seeks to answer the questions of how pronoun use is linked with the overall typological development in English and how their diachronic evolution is embedded in the linguistic and social structures in which they are used. The theoretical framework draws on corpus linguistics and historical sociolinguistics, grammaticalisation, diachronic typology, and multivariate analysis of modelling sociolinguistic variation. The method employs quantitative corpus analyses from two main electronic corpora, one from Modern English and the other from Present-day English. The Modern English material is the Corpus of Early English Correspondence, and the time frame covered is 1500-1800. The written component of the British National Corpus is used in the Present-day English investigations. In addition, the study draws supplementary data from other electronic corpora. The material is used to compare the frequencies and distributions of common-number pronouns between these two time periods. The study limits the common-number uses to two subsystems, one anaphoric to grammatically singular antecedents and one cataphoric, in which the pronoun is followed by a relative clause. Various statistical tools are used to process the data, ranging from cross-tabulations to multivariate VARBRUL analyses in which the effects of sociolinguistic and systemic parameters are assessed to model their impact on the dependent variable. This study shows how one pronoun type has extended its uses in both subsystems, an increase linked with grammaticalisation and the changes in other pronouns in English through the centuries. The variationist sociolinguistic analysis charts how grammaticalisation in the subsystems is embedded in the linguistic and social structures in which the pronouns are used. The study suggests a scale of two statistical generalisations of various sociolinguistic factors which contribute to grammaticalisation and its embedding at various stages of the process.

Abductive translation studies : The art of marshalling signs

This dissertation contributes to the fields of theoretical translation studies, semiotic translation theory, and the semiotics of translation. The aim of this work is to explore the alternative and potential which the semiotic approaches to translation entail from the viewpoint of contemporary translation studies. The overall objective is thus to show that a general semiotic translation theory, and in particular, a Peircean translation theory, are possible and indispensable. Furthermore, this study contributes to the semiotranslational approach and to its theory-building by developing the concept of abductive translation (studies). The specific theoretical frame of reference adopted in this study is provided by the semiotranslation introduced by Dinda L. Gorlée. This approach is primarily based on the semeiotic of Charles Sanders Peirce (1839 1914), and aims at a fusion of semiotics and translation studies. A more general framework is provided by the threefold background and material: the published and unpublished writings of Peirce, Peirce scholarship and Peircean-semiotic publications, as well as the translation-theoretical literature. Part One of this study concentrates on the justification, existence, and nature of the semiotic approaches to translation. This part provides a historical survey, a status report, and a discussion of this area of research, by employing the findings in a boundary-clearing that is multilayered both conceptually and terminologically. Part Two deals with Peircean semiotranslation. Here Gorlée s semiotranslational research is examined by focusing on the starting points, features, and development of semiotranslation. Attention is also paid to the state-of-the-art of semiotranslation theory and to the possibilities for future elaborations. Part Three focuses on the semiotranslational claim that translation is an abductive activity. The concept of abductive translation is based on abduction, one of Peirce s three modes of reasoning; at the same time Firstness, the category of abduction, becomes foregrounded. So abductive translation as a form of possibilistic translation receives here an extensive theoretical discussion by citing examples in which abduction manifests itself as (scientific) reasoning and as everyday contemplation. During this treatise, translation is first equated with sign action, then with interpretation and finally with reasoning. All these approaches appear to embody different facets of the same phenomenon Peirce s ubiquitous semiosis, and they all suggest that translation is inherently an intersemiotic activity in which a sign is inferred from another sign. Translation is therefore semiosis, semiosis is translation and interpretation, interpretation is reasoning, and so on ad infinitum all being manifestations of the art of marshalling signs. The three parts of this study are linked by the overall goal of abductive translation studies: investigation into abductive translation develops the theory of semiotranslation, and this enrichment of semiotranslation in turn constructs a semiotic paradigm within translation studies.

History, Transfer, Politics : Five studies on the legacy of Uppsala philosophy

The Uppsala school of Axel Hägerström can be said to have been the last genuinely Swedish philosophical movement. On the other hand, the Swedish analytic tradition is often said to have its roots in Hägerström s thought. This work examines the transformation from Uppsala philosophy to analytic philosophy from an actor-based historical perspective. The aim is to describe how a group of younger scholars (Ingemar Hedenius, Konrad Marc-Wogau, Anders Wedberg, Alf Ross, Herbert Tingsten, Gunnar Myrdal) colonised the legacy of Hägerström and Uppsala philosophy, and faced the challenges they met in trying to reconcile this legacy with the changing philosophical and political currents of the 1930s and 40s. Following Quentin Skinner, the texts are analysed as moves or speech acts in a particular historical context. The thesis consists of five previously published case studies and an introduction. The first study describes how the image of Hägerström as the father of the Swedish analytic tradition was created by a particular faction of younger Uppsala philosophers who (re-) presented the Hägerströmian philosophy as a parallel movement to logical empiricism. The second study examines the confrontations between Uppsala philosophy and logical empiricism in both the editorial board and in the pages of Sweden s leading philosophical journal Theoria. The third study focuses on how the younger generation redescribed Hägerströmian legal philosophical ideas (Scandinavian Legal Realism), while the fourth study discusses how they responded to the accusations of a connection between Hägerström s value nihilistic theory and totalitarianism. Finally, the fifth study examines how the Swedish social scientist and Social Democratic intellectual Gunnar Myrdal tried to reconcile value nihilism with a strong political programme for social reform. The contribution of this thesis to the field consists mainly in a re-evaluation of the role of Uppsala philosophy in the history of Swedish philosophy. From this perspective the Uppsala School was less a collection of certain definite philosophical ideas than an intellectual legacy that was the subject of fierce struggles. Its theories and ideas were redescribed in various ways by individual actors with different philosophical and political intentions.

The Reorganisation of Provincial Territories in Light of the Imperial Decision-Making Process : Later Roman Arabia and Tres Palaestinae as Case Studies

The dissertation examines Roman provincial administration and the phenomenon of territorial reorganisations of provinces during the Imperial period with special emphasis on the provinces of Arabia and Palaestina during the Later Roman period, i.e., from Diocletian (r. 284 305) to the accession of Phocas (602), in the light of imperial decision-making. Provinces were the basic unit of Roman rule, for centuries the only level of administration that existed between the emperor and the cities of the Empire. The significance of the territorial reorganisations that the provinces were subjected to during the Imperial period is thus of special interest. The approach to the phenomenon is threefold: firstly, attention is paid to the nature and constraints of the Roman system of provincial administration. Secondly, the phenomenon of territorial reorganisations is analysed on the macro-scale, and thirdly, a case study concerning the reorganisations of the provinces of Arabia and Palaestina is conducted. The study of the mechanisms of decision-making provides a foundation through which the collected data of all known major territorial reorganisations is interpreted. The data concerning reorganisations is also subjected to qualitative comparative analysis that provides a new perspective to the data in the form of statistical analysis that is sensitive to the complexities of individual cases. This analysis of imperial decision-making is based on a timeframe stretching from Augustus (r. 30 BC AD 14) to the accession of Phocas (602). The study identifies five distinct phases in the use of territorial reorganisations of the provinces. From Diocletian s reign there is a clear normative change that made territorial reorganisations a regular tool of administration for the decision-making elite for addressing a wide variety of qualitatively different concerns. From the beginning of the fifth century the use of territorial reorganisations rapidly diminishes. The two primary reasons for the decline in the use of reorganisations were the solidification of ecclesiastical power and interests connected to the extent of provinces, and the decline of the dioceses. The case study of Palaestina and Arabia identifies seven different territorial reorganisations from Diocletian to Phocas. Their existence not only testifies to wider imperial policies, but also shows sensitivity to local conditions and corresponds with the general picture of provincial reorganisations. The territorial reorganisations of the provinces reflect the proactive control of the Roman decision-making elite. The importance of reorganisations should be recognised more clearly as part of the normal imperial administration of the provinces and especially reflecting the functioning of dioceses.

Society by Numbers : Studies on Model-Based Explanations in the Social Sciences

The aim of this dissertation is to provide conceptual tools for the social scientist for clarifying, evaluating and comparing explanations of social phenomena based on formal mathematical models. The focus is on relatively simple theoretical models and simulations, not statistical models. These studies apply a theory of explanation according to which explanation is about tracing objective relations of dependence, knowledge of which enables answers to contrastive why and how-questions. This theory is developed further by delineating criteria for evaluating competing explanations and by applying the theory to social scientific modelling practices and to the key concepts of equilibrium and mechanism. The dissertation is comprised of an introductory essay and six published original research articles. The main theses about model-based explanations in the social sciences argued for in the articles are the following. 1) The concept of explanatory power, often used to argue for the superiority of one explanation over another, compasses five dimensions which are partially independent and involve some systematic trade-offs. 2) All equilibrium explanations do not causally explain the obtaining of the end equilibrium state with the multiple possible initial states. Instead, they often constitutively explain the macro property of the system with the micro properties of the parts (together with their organization). 3) There is an important ambivalence in the concept mechanism used in many model-based explanations and this difference corresponds to a difference between two alternative research heuristics. 4) Whether unrealistic assumptions in a model (such as a rational choice model) are detrimental to an explanation provided by the model depends on whether the representation of the explanatory dependency in the model is itself dependent on the particular unrealistic assumptions. Thus evaluating whether a literally false assumption in a model is problematic requires specifying exactly what is supposed to be explained and by what. 5) The question of whether an explanatory relationship depends on particular false assumptions can be explored with the process of derivational robustness analysis and the importance of robustness analysis accounts for some of the puzzling features of the tradition of model-building in economics. 6) The fact that economists have been relatively reluctant to use true agent-based simulations to formulate explanations can partially be explained by the specific ideal of scientific understanding implicit in the practise of orthodox economics.

Three Sides of a Wall : Obstacles and Border States in Paul Auster's Novels

Tutkielmani käsittelee yhdysvaltalaisen kirjailijan Paul Austerin (s. 1947) romaanituotannossa esiintyviä esteitä ja rajatiloja. Erityisesti olen kiinnostunut siitä, miten Auster liittää nämä "marginaalitilat" amerikkalaiseen vapauden ja laajentumisen ideologiaan sekä kieleen ja kirjoittamiseen. Austerin romaaneissa esteiden ja rajatilojen käsittely voidaan jakaa kolmeen vaiheeseen. Ensimmäisessä vaiheessa henkilöt ovat vahvojen esteiden rajoittamia tai rakentavat niitä itse. Rajoittuneisuus ei kuitenkaan aina tunnu häiritsevän heitä - itse asiassa monet päähenkilöistä tuntevat itsensä onnellisiksi tai vähintäänkin tyytyväisiksi joutuessaan esteen takia pysähdyttämään vapaan liikkeensä. Toisessa vaiheessa henkilöt pyrkivät ylittämään tai rikkomaan esteen päästäkseen toiselle puolelle. Kuten amerikkalaiset esi-isänsä aikoinaan, he etsivät rajatonta, laajaa ja tyhjää tilaa - "suurta tuntematonta" valloitettavakseen. Tällaisen tilan kohdatessaan he joutuvat kuitenkin usein epävarmuuden valtaan. Kolmas vaihe on tutkielmani kannalta tärkein: välitila, josta käytän työssäni nimitystä "in-betweenity". Tähän vaiheeseen päästään kulkemalla ensin kahden muun vaiheen kautta. Juuri tietoisuus näistä kahdesta muusta vaiheesta synnyttää tämän kolmannen tilan, eräänlaisen rajatilan, jossa tajutaan sekä esteiden että esteettömyyden tärkeys. Tämä välitila on Austerille tyypillinen tila, joka kertoo paitsi amerikkalaisen unelman paradoksaalisuudesta myös (kaunokirjallisen) kielenkäytön prosessista. Monet Austerin kirjojen muurin rakentajista tai purkajista voidaan nähdä kirjailijahahmoina, joiden omituinen suhde esteisiin ja rajoihin kumpuaa juuri siitä rajatilasta, jonka asukkaita he kielentaiteilijoina väistämättä ovat. Tällaisen tilan/tilattomuuden kuvaaminen tekee Austerista oman postmodernin aikamme tärkeän kirjailijan - kirjailijan, joka sen sijaan, että pyrkisi eroon paradokseista, sijoittaa hahmonsa niiden sisään. Rajoihin ja esteisiin liittyvä problematiikka ei kuitenkaan ole pelkästään nykyajan ongelma vaan kysymys, joka ihmisen toisaalta rajoja kaipaavan toisaalta rajattomuutta kaipaavan luonteen vuoksi säilyy aina ajankohtaisena. Avainsanat: Paul Auster, este, muuri, raja, Yhdysvallat

Substrata Uralica : Studies on Finno-Ugrian Substrate in Northern Russian Dialects

The thesis consists of five articles and an introduction. It treats the problems of the Uralic substrate, most notably, the substrate toponyms, in the Russian dialects of Arkhangelsk region. The articles contribute to the general linguistic discussion concerning the nature of linguistic substrate and the outcome of language shift and to the onomastic discussion concerning the etymologisation and ethnic interpretation of substrate toponymy. Among the questions the articles scrutinised are the following: 1) How may phonetic and morphosyntactic substrate interference be verified? 2) How typical is the transfer of vocabulary in the case of a language shift? 3) How the borrowing of toponymy and appellative vocabulary are connected in the case of a language shift? 4) How does the etymologisation of the toponyms differ from the etymologisation of appellatives? 5) How reliable can the toponymic etymologies be? 6) How can the substrate language be identified? It is found that the substrate interference that can be meaningfully studied, from the point of view of historical linguistics, is predominantly lexical and not related to phonetics and morphosyntax, as presumed in many handbooks. New methods are outlined for the identification of substrate languages separately from the lexical, phonological and typological point of view by using the substrate toponymy as the main source of information on extinct languages. A reliability scale for the toponymic etymologies is developed that helps to identify the kinds of etymologies containing ethnohistorically meaningful information. The study also sheds light on questions related to Uralistics and Slavistics. The most important of these are the following: 1) Which Uralic languages were spoken in North Russia prior to Slavic? 2) When did the Slavicisation of the Finno-Ugrian population take place in the area of the Arkhangelsk Region? 3) What is the significance of the Finno-Ugrian substrate in northern Russian dialects to comparative Uralistics? 4) Are there any traces of pre-Uralic substrate languages in north-eastern Europe? The Finnic substrate languages, already identified by earlier studies, seem to have consisted of two groups, one of which was closest to the southern Finnic. Also, language(s) close to Sámi in some respects though not identical with it where spoken in pre-Slavic North Russia.

Meän tapa puhua : Tornionlaakso pellolaisnuorten subjektiivisena paikkana ja murrealueena

This folk linguistic and human geographic study deals with dialect awareness, dialect use and place attachment. The study discusses theoretical and methodological issues current in sociolinguistics suggesting that the study of attitudes should be regarded as a core area in the study of variation and change. Furthermore, it is suggested that instead of putting effort into improving mental mapping methodology (adopted into folk linguistics from behavioural geography of the 1960 s), the more up-to-date thinking of space in geography should be adopted. The region and the dialect are treated as perceptual constructs in the study. The dialect perceptions of high school seniors in the Finnish Tornio Valley are examined trough a triangulation method involving a questionnaire, interviews and dialect recognition test as the research methods. The h in non-initial syllables (e.g. lähethä(ä)n, saunhaan ~ sauhnaan let s go into sauna ) turns out, expectedly, as the most salient feature in the dialect awareness of the locals and in terms of local identity construction. This feature is no longer heard in most of the present dialects of Finnish but is still thriving in the Tornio Valley in the cross-border dialect area. The metathetic variant (saunhaan > sauhnaan into sauna , käymhään > käyhmään to go ) is a characteristic feature of the Tornio Valley dialect. However, individual differences have long been found in the use of the h. This study challenges the essentialist variationist view of social categories (gender) by analysing variation from a quantitative but emic and human geographic point of view. The study shows that the variation of the h is statistically significantly patterned in terms of the degree of feeling of insideness vs. outsideness. New light is shed on the gender differences found in earlier sociolinguistic studies: differences in dialect use between and inside gender groups are illuminated by the fact that, in this case, it is young women who are generally less attached to the local community than young men, but this does not hold for all the individuals. The ideological motivation for preservation of the h seems to be based on the imagined community of Tornio Valley covering both the Swedish and the Finnish valley area. The general image of the dialect area and it s speakers, the shared cognitive dialect boundaries of the locals and the particularly deep level of awaress of the linguistic variation of the h are notable resources of the Tornio valley identity. Hyperdialectic forms analogical to the most frequently attested metathetic forms are found in the interview data, predicting that in this dialect the h will be maintained also in the future.