Do some research on this companies and write a 400 page paper about where do these companies stand today.
GLOBAL issue MANAGING CORPORATE CULTURE FOR GLOBAL COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE: ABB VS. PANASONIC 'urich-based ABB Asea Brown | world. Konosuke Matsushita founded the company in 1918. overi AG is a world-builder His management philosophy led to the company's success power plants and electrical but became institutionalized in the corporate culture-a ment with industrial factories culture that was more focused on Japanese values than on in 140 countries. By establishing one set cross-cultural globalization. As a result, Panasonic corporate of multicultural values throughout its global operations, ABB's culture does not adapt well to local conditions. Not only is management believes that the company will gain an advantage Panasonic's top management exclusively Japanese, its subsidover its rivals Siemens AG of Germany, France's Alcatel-Alsthom iary managers are overwhelmingly Japanese. The company's NV, and the U.S.S General Electric Company. ABB is a company distrust of non-Japanese managers in the United States and with no geographic base. Instead, it has many "home" mar- some European countries results in a "rice-paper ceiling" kets where it can draw on expertise from around the globe. that prevents non-Japanese people from being promoted ABB created a set of 500 global managers who could adapt to into Panasonic subsidiaries' top management. Foreign emlocal cultures while executing ABB's global strategies. These ployees are often confused by the corporate philosophy that people are multilingual and move around each of ABB's 5000 has not been adapted to suit local realities. Panasonic's corprofit centers in 140 countries. Their assignment is to cut porate culture perpetuates a cross-cultural divide that sepacosts, improve efficiency, and integrate local businesses with rates the Japanese from the non-Japanese managers, leaving the ABB worldview. Few multinational corporations are as successful as ABB ued. This divide prevents the flow of knowledge and experiin getting global strategies to work with local operations. ence from regional operations to the headquarters and may In agreement with the resource-based view of the firm, hinder Panasonic's ability to compete globally. the past Chairman of ABB, Percy Barnevik stated, "Our strength comes from pulling together. ... If you can make this work real well, then you get a competitive edge out SOURCES: Summarized from I. Guyon, "ABB Fuses Units with of the organization which is very, very difficult to copy." One Set of Values," The Wall Street Journal (October 2, 1996), Contrast ABB's globally oriented corporate culture with p. A15, and N. Holden, "Why Globalizing with a Conservative the more parochial culture of Panasonic Corporation of Corporate Culture Inhibits Localization of Management: The TellJapan. Panasonic is the third-largest electrical company in the Cultural Management (Vol.1, No. 1, 2001), pp. 53-72
