The Impact of Cultural Factors on Post-Acquisition Integration: Domestic and Foreign Acquisitions of Finnish Companies in 1993-2004

Acquisitions are a central component of corporate strategy. They contribute to competitive advantage by offering possibilities for both cost reductions and for revenue enhancements. However, many acquisition benefits cannot be realized without a successful integration of the acquiring and the acquired firms. Previous research shows that national and organizational culture can play a major role in determining the integration outcomes. Therefore, the overall aim of the thesis is to map out and illustrate the impact mechanisms of cultural factors in post-acquisition integration in order to explain the cultural aspects of acquisitions. This study has three main contributions. First, the study shows that international and domestic acquisitions differ concerning both strategic and cultural fit. Second, the findings highlight the importance of acculturation and cultural integration in determining post-acquisition outcomes. Finally, the study uncovers several impact mechanisms that shed light to the contradictory results related to cultural differences in previous research.

Understanding Customer Loyalty and Disloyalty The Effect of Loyalty-Supporting and -Repressing Factors (first edition sold out, 'print on demand' 60 €)

Customer loyalty has been a central topic of both marketing theory and practice for several decades. Customer disloyalty, or relationship ending, has received much less attention. Despite the close relation between customer loyalty and disloyalty, they have rarely been addressed in the same study. The thesis bridges this gap by focusing on both loyal and disloyal customers and the factors characterising them. Based on a qualitative study of loyal and disloyal bank customers in the Finnish retail banking market, both factors that are common to the groups and factors that differentiate between them are identified. A conceptual framework of factors that affect customer loyalty or disloyalty is developed and used to analyse the empirical data. According to the framework, customers’ loyalty status (behavioural and attitudinal loyalty) is influenced by positive, loyalty-supporting, and negative, loyalty-repressing factors. Loyalty-supporting factors either promote customer dedication, making the customer want to remain loyal, or act as constraints, hindering the customer from switching. Among the loyalty-repressing factors it is especially important to identify those that act as triggers of disloyal behaviour, making customers switch service providers. The framework further suggests that by identifying the sources of loyalty-supporting and -repressing factors (the environment, the provider, the customer, the provider-customer interaction, or the core service) one can determine which factors are within the control of the service provider. Attitudinal loyalty is approached through a customer’s “feeling of loyalty”, as described by customers both orally and graphically. By combining the graphs with behavioural loyalty, seven customer groups are identified: Stable Loyals, Rescued Loyals, Loyals at Risk, Positive Disloyals, Healing Disloyals, Fading Disloyals, and Abrupt Disloyals. The framework and models of the thesis can be used to analyse factors that affect customer loyalty and disloyalty in different service contexts. Since the empirical study was carried out in a retail bank setting, the thesis has managerial relevance especially for banks. Christina Nordman is associated with CERS, Center for Relationship Marketing and Service Management at the Swedish School of Economics and Business Administration. The doctoral thesis is part of the Göran Collert Research Project in Customer Relationships and Retail Banking and has been funded by The Göran Collert Foundation.

Factors Driving Stock Option Grants - Empirical Evidence from Finland

This study contributes to the executive stock option literature by looking at factors driving the introduction of such a compensation form on a firm level. Using a discrete decision model I test the explanatory power of several agency theory based variables and find strong support for predictability of the form of executive compensation. Ownership concentration and liquidity are found to have a significant negative effect on the probability of stock option adoption. Furtermore, I find evidence of CEO ownership, institutional ownership, investment intensity, and historical market return having a significant and a positive relationship to the likelihood of adopting a executive stock option program.

The Influence of World Factors on Finnish Stock Market Volatility

This paper investigates to what extent the volatility of Finnish stock portfolios is transmitted through the "world volatility". We operationalize the volatility processes of Finnish leverage, industry, and size portfolio returns by asymmetric GARCH specifications according to Glosten et al. (1993). We use daily return data for January, 2, 1987 to December 30, 1998. We find that the world shock significantly enters the domestic models, and that the impact has increased over time. This applies also for the variance ratios, and the correlations to the world. The larger the firm, the larger is the world impact. The conditional variance is higher during recessions. The asymmetry parameter is surprisingly non-significant, and the leverage hypothesis cannot be verified. The return generating process of the domestic portfolio returns does usually not include the world information set, thus indicating that the returns are generated by a segmented conditional asset pricing model.

Bootstrapping the Error Correction Model Cointegration Test

This paper is concerned with using the bootstrap to obtain improved critical values for the error correction model (ECM) cointegration test in dynamic models. In the paper we investigate the effects of dynamic specification on the size and power of the ECM cointegration test with bootstrap critical values. The results from a Monte Carlo study show that the size of the bootstrap ECM cointegration test is close to the nominal significance level. We find that overspecification of the lag length results in a loss of power. Underspecification of the lag length results in size distortion. The performance of the bootstrap ECM cointegration test deteriorates if the correct lag length is not used in the ECM. The bootstrap ECM cointegration test is therefore not robust to model misspecification.

CREMOFAC- a database of chromatin remodeling factors

Motivation: Chromatin-remodeling is an important event in the eukaryotic nucleus rendering nucleosomal DNA accessible for various transaction processes. Remodeling Factors facilitate the dynamic nature of chromatin through participation of the collective action of (i) ATP and (ii) Non-ATP dependent factors. Considering the importance of these factors in eukaryotes, we have developed, CREMOFAC, a dedicated and frequently updated web-database for chromatin-remodeling factors.Results: The database harbors factors from 49 different organisms reported in literature and facilitates a comprehensive search for them. In addition, it also provides in-depth information for the factors reported in the three widely studied mammals namely, human, mouse and rat. Further, information on literature, pathways and phylogenetic relationships has also been covered. The development of CREMOFAC as a central repository for chromatin-remodeling factors and the absence of such a pre-existing database heighten its utility thus making its presence indispensable.

On-board correction of systematic error of Earth sensors

Infrared Earth sensors are used in spacecraft for attitude sensing. Their accuracy is limited by systematic and random errors. Dominant sources of systematic errors are analyzed for a typical scanning infrared Earth sensor used in a remote-sensing satellite in a 900-km sun-synchronous orbit. The errors considered arise from 1) seasonable variation of infrared radiation, 2) oblate shape of the Earth, 3) ambient temperature of sensors, 4) changes in spin/scan period, and 5) misalignment of the axis of the sensors. Simple relations are derived using least-squares curve fitting for onboard correction of these errors. With these, it is possible to improve the accuracy of attitude determination by eight fold and achieve performance comparable to ground-based post-facto attitude computation.

Mixed-mode stress intensity factors for arbitrarily oriented cracks in cylindrical shells under axial pull and torsion

Results of photoelastic investigations conducted on cylindrical tubes (made of Araldite material) containing cracks oriented at 0°, 30°, 45°, 60° and 90° to the axis of the tube and subjected to axial and torsional loads are reported. The stress-intensity factors (SIFs) were determined by analysing the crack-tip stress fields. Smith and Smith's method [Engng Fracture Mech.4, 357–366 (1972)] and a new method developed by the authors by modifying Rakesh et al.'s method [Proc. 26th Congress of ISTAM, India (1981)] were employed to evaluate the mixed-mode SIFs.

Quantum Error Correction via Codes over GF(2)

It is well known that n-length stabilizer quantum error correcting codes (QECCs) can be obtained via n-length classical error correction codes (CECCs) over GF(4), that are additive and self-orthogonal with respect to the trace Hermitian inner product. But, most of the CECCs have been studied with respect to the Euclidean inner product. In this paper, it is shown that n-length stabilizer QECCs can be constructed via 371 length linear CECCs over GF(2) that are self-orthogonal with respect to the Euclidean inner product. This facilitates usage of the widely studied self-orthogonal CECCs to construct stabilizer QECCs. Moreover, classical, binary, self-orthogonal cyclic codes have been used to obtain stabilizer QECCs with guaranteed quantum error correcting capability. This is facilitated by the fact that (i) self-orthogonal, binary cyclic codes are easily identified using transform approach and (ii) for such codes lower bounds on the minimum Hamming distance are known. Several explicit codes are constructed including two pure MDS QECCs.

Effect of various factors influencing the delamination behavior of surfactant intercalated layered double hydroxides

The delamination-restacking behavior of a number of layered double hydroxides (LDHs) differing in [M-II]/[M-III] ratio, constituent metal ions and intercalated surfactant anions in different organic solvents has been studied. Colloidal dispersion due to delamination and the stability of the colloid obtained have been found to be not affected much by the nature of the constituent metal ions but increase with increase in the size of the surfactant anion. LDHs with low [M-II]/[M-III] ratio delaminate better than the ones with high [M-II]/[M-III] ratio. Delamination is best in alcohols such as 1-butanol, 1-hexanol, 1-octanol and I-decanol, while a little delamination occurs in nonpolar solvents such as hexane. In all the cases, the original layered solid could be obtained through restacking of layers from the colloidal dispersion.

Convolutional Codes for Network-Error Correction

In this work, we introduce convolutional codes for network-error correction in the context of coherent network coding. We give a construction of convolutional codes that correct a given set of error patterns, as long as consecutive errors are separated by a certain interval. We also give some bounds on the field size and the number of errors that can get corrected in a certain interval. Compared to previous network error correction schemes, using convolutional codes is seen to have advantages in field size and decoding technique. Some examples are discussed which illustrate the several possible situations that arise in this context.

Social factors at work and the health of employees

Masennus, ahdistuneisuus, alkoholiriippuvuus ja alkoholin väärinkäyttö sekä unihäiriöt ovat yleisiä ongelmia työssä käyvän väestön keskuudessa. Nämä sairaudet ja oireet aiheuttavat huomattavia kuluja myös yhteiskunnalle. Sosiaalisen tuen ja työilmapiirin yhteyttä työssä käyvien (n = 3 347–3 430) terveyteen tutkittiin Terveyden ja hyvinvoinnin laitoksen Terveys 2000 -aineistossa. Sosiaalista tukea työssä mitattiin JCQ-kyselyllä (Job Content Questionnaire) ja yksityiselämän sosiaalista tukea SSQ-kyselyllä (Social Support Questionnaire). Työilmapiiriä mitattiin kyselyllä, joka on osa Terve työyhteisö -kyselyä. Mielenterveyshäiriöiden diagnoosit perustuivat CIDI-haastatteluun (Composite International Diagnostic Interview). Tiedot lääkärin määräämistä masennus- ja unilääkkeistä poimittiin Kelan lääkerekisteristä ja tiedot työkyvyttömyyseläkkeistä Eläketurvakeskuksen ja Kelan rekistereistä. Ilmapiirin kokemisessa ei ollut merkitsevää eroa sukupuolten välillä. Sen sijaan naiset kokivat saavansa sosiaalista tukea enemmän sekä työssä että yksityiselämässä. Vähäinen sosiaalinen tuki sekä työssä että yksityiselämässä oli yhteydessä masennukseen, ahdistuneisuushäiriöihin ja moniin uniongelmiin. Huono työilmapiiri oli yhteydessä sekä masennukseen että ahdistuneisuushäiriöihin. Vähäinen tuki sekä esimiehiltä että työtovereilta oli yhteydessä myöhempään masennuslääkkeiden käyttöön. Huono työilmapiiri ennusti myös masennuslääkkeiden käyttöä. Vähäinen sosiaalinen tuki esimieheltä näytti lisäävän työkyvyttömyyseläkkeen todennäköisyyttä. Työhyvinvointiin täytyy kiinnittää huomiota, koska vähäinen sosiaalinen tuki ja huono työilmapiiri ovat yhteydessä mielenterveysongelmiin ja lisäävät työkyvyn menettämisen riskiä. – Englanninkielinen julkaisu. Suomenkielinen yhteenveto s. 89–90.