This paper reports findings from an eight-year ethnographic study of the integration process in a large healthcare system formed in a 1994 merger. We examine the postmerger integration process by analyzing the relative amounts of time that senior managers in one unit of this organization spent discussing various integration topics and issues in their bi-weekly meetings from 1995 to 2002. We also describe the different patterns observed when managers addressed topics in their meetings related to internal unit integration versus integration with other parts of the organization. Finally, we identify a vicious cycle of repeated conflicts in how organizational members made sense of issues that emerged during the post-merger integration journey.

The strategic transformation of Asian firms into global players has involved the adoption and adaptation of many organizational practices developed in the West. We build a process model of adaptation by observing how an organizational practice is adapted to a local setting different from its locus of origin, through inductive methods and case studies of Six Sigma implementation in Korean and US firms. Based on these cases, we propose a cascading, sequential pattern to the local adaptation of the conceptual, social and technical dimensions of organizational practices, reconciling conflicting views in the literature on whether or not to adapt. Our theoretical model highlights the importance of considering the different degrees of contextual influence on different underlying dimensions of a practice, and of configuring each dimension accordingly. Further, we suggest that the sequence and configuration of adaptation across different practice dimensions matter to the successful implementation of a practice across borders.

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We investigate what determines a multinational enterprise’s (MNE) propensity to engage in lobbying and bribing in host countries where the overall institutional development for market exchanges is insufficient, and thus, their governance systems are relatively weak. We extend the current literature on institutional strategies by theorizing and showing the persistent and significant impacts of home country institutions on an MNE’s choice of influencing activities to address institutional constraints overseas. More specifically, our results demonstrate that the MNEs from a home country with a stronger governance system are less involved in bribery, but have a higher tendency to lobby in transition economy countries, which have been characterized by relatively weaker institutional development, particularly in the area of governance. This tendency still holds even when these MNEs rely more on the local market for sales. We draw theoretical and practical implications from these observations.

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