MSc Professional Thesis_JustineGilbert_2014

SKEMA BUSINESS SCHOOL
MASTER OF SCIENCE IN PROJECT AND PROGRAMME MANAGEMENT & BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT
LAST NAME: GILBERT
GIVEN NAME: Justine
NATIONALITY: French
TUTOR: Anke MIDDELMANN
DATE: 2014
WORD COUNT: 27535
PAGE COUNT: 80
LANGUAGE: English
Keywords: International business development, SMEs, IT (Information Technologies), IT
capabilities, National culture, Corporate culture, Intercultural management, Performance,
Key of success, Organizational challenges, Managerial challenges, Human resources,
International context, Communication
« I certify that this work is personal, quote all the sources used and does not contain
plagiarism. »
Justine GILBERT
IN WHAT WAY CAN SMALL AND MEDIUM COMPANIES BENEFIT
FROM BIG COMPANIES’ EXPERIENCE IN TERMS
OFINTERNATIONAL BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT?

Professional Research Thesis
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I. Introduction..................................................................................................................................... 4
II. Literature Revue.............................................................................................................................. 5
A. Corporate culture and Intercultural management...................................................................... 5
Culture............................................................................................................................................. 5
Corporate culture............................................................................................................................ 7
Organizational culture in an international context....................................................................... 12
B. Information Technologies ......................................................................................................... 19
IT capabilities................................................................................................................................. 19
IT capabilities linked to performance............................................................................................ 21
C. Organizational and managerial challenges in an international business development context
23
Identify organizational and managerial challenges....................................................................... 23
The combination of IT capabilities and cultural and intercultural management.......................... 24
D. Differences between small and medium companies and multinational companies................ 26
SEMs companies: definitions......................................................................................................... 26
SEMs companies in an international development context ......................................................... 27
III. Hypothesis................................................................................................................................. 29
IV. Research Method...................................................................................................................... 31
V. Results and Analyze....................................................................................................................... 32
A. Presentation of the interviewed ............................................................................................... 32
B. Human resources ...................................................................................................................... 33
International interest .................................................................................................................... 33
Recruitment................................................................................................................................... 35
C. Intercultural management ........................................................................................................ 36
Human resources .......................................................................................................................... 36
Definition of intercultural management ....................................................................................... 37
Communication............................................................................................................................. 37
Evolution of personal feeling......................................................................................................... 39
D. IT................................................................................................................................................ 39
Organization management............................................................................................................ 39
Knowledge management .............................................................................................................. 41
Control........................................................................................................................................... 42

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Communication management/tools............................................................................................. 42
E. Corporate culture...................................................................................................................... 43
VI. Conclusion ................................................................................................................................. 45
A. Literature revue and result consistency.................................................................................... 45
Corporate business and intercultural management (C1).............................................................. 45
IT linked to performance (C2) ....................................................................................................... 46
IT capabilities................................................................................................................................. 46
Companies challenges to reach performance in the context of international development (C3)47
Differences between SMEs and big companies (C4)..................................................................... 48
B. Hypothesis review..................................................................................................................... 49
C. Problematic answer................................................................................................................... 52
VII. References................................................................................................................................. 54
VIII. Annex......................................................................................................................................... 57
Interview guide.................................................................................................................................. 57
Interviews meeting............................................................................................................................ 59
A1................................................................................................................................................... 59
A2................................................................................................................................................... 65
A3................................................................................................................................................... 68
A4................................................................................................................................................... 72
A5................................................................................................................................................... 77

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I. Introduction
Nowadays the international business development of the companies are often no longer a
choice but a necessity to perform, progress or survive in the context of the globalization and of the
always more fierce competition.
Some studies focus on business international development by tackling a more or less
strategic analysis by exposing the entry modes choices (export, alliance, joint-venture or wholly
owned subsidiary (Pan and Tse, 2000), or a more procedural analyze trying to identify a typical
process in the international development (by step, by networks, etc…).
Through this study, we will not explore those theories which have already been largely
studied. However we will focus our interest on two other lines which have also been studied
independently the one from the other, namely:
- Corporate cultural and intercultural management
- Information Technologies management
Indeed we want to understand those concepts, independently first and then the combination of the
two, in order to define in what way they can be used as keys of success of the international
development of an organization.
Moreover, more and more studies (Julien, Marchernay, Raymond, Torès, etc.) tend to
differentiate the international business development or more generally business management
according to the size of the companies (mostly two categories: small and medium companies in one
hand and big companies on another hand). Our aim is not to analyze independently one from the
other, but to understand the existing common part between the two categories in terms of
international development, in order to use the existing studies and the understanding we already
have for big companies and to adapt them to small and medium companies.
In order to do so, and via our literature review, we will first go through the concept and the
understanding and the use of corporate culture and intercultural management, before following the
same process for the concept, the understanding and the use of Information Technologies (IT) in the
context of international development.
We will then outline the challenges faced by companies in terms of international business
development and see in what way the combination of cultural and intercultural management and of
the IT management leads to handle those challenges.
Finally we will identify the intrinsic differences between the different sized companies and see what
are the implications in terms of challenges in the international development context and how
previous solutions can be applicable.
Following our literature revue, we will outline our hypothesis that we will try to confirm via a
qualitative approach. This choice of research will be explain in the methodology explanation as an
introduction.

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II. Literature Revue
A. Corporate culture and Intercultural management
Culture
What is « culture »?
The definition of culture is the first step and a very important one. Indeed, within the thesis,
the concept of culture is in the center of the challenge faced by companies. The following data will
allow us to define the significance of culture, or at least the significance that we want to adopt in
order to understand well all the subtleties.
In his book “Cultures and Organizations: Software of the mind” (1991), Geert Hofstede describes
culture as the mental software of the human being in order to show that people’s behavior, that
means the way they think, the way they talk, the way they act, etc., is predetermined by what we can
call programs.
We can identify three distinct kinds of programs as shown below:
Figure 1 : Programs (Hofstede, 1991)
The first level is the human nature: this is what everybody in the world has in common. This level is
determined by people’s physical and psychological “operating system”. The well-known Maslow’s
hierarchy of needs is based on this level: it considers that all human beings have common needs in
term of primary need (eating, sleeping, etc.), safety, belonging, esteem and last but not least in term
self-actualization. Human nature is universal and inherited.
The last level of the pyramid is the personality. This is specific to individual and is both learned and
inherited. Inherited in the way that a part of the personality is genetic and learned because it is also
influence by collective “operating system” or more simply, by the others, and by personal
experiences.
Culture is located between the two levels human nature and personality. Culture is specific to group
and is totally learned.
Personality
Culture
Human nature

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The level of culture
Within the concept of culture, Hofstede define several depth levels, as shown by the figure 2.
Figure 2: Levels of culture (Hofstede, 1991)
The most superficial level of the culture is Symbols. This level is said superficial because ideas and
practices which are ensued from it are easily modifiable, from a generation to another one for
example. This can be also copied from one culture to another. Symbols are very important, and the
meaning can also be different from a culture to another. The swastika is a glaring example: it is a very
old symbol and its meaning has been changing over the past and according the cultures. In Europe, it
is well known as the anti-Semitic Hitler’s symbol but in Buddhist culture, it is still the symbol of
eternity.
The layer just below Symbols is Heroes. They can come from the TV or from the history, they can be
still alive or not. The most important is that Heroes have characteristics appropriate to a culture and
often serve as lines of conduct for the members of the group sharing the same culture. In a business
context, the Heroes can be the leaders or the company CEOs. For instance, we can easily recognize
Steve Jobs as Apple’s Hero.
Ritual is the level coming after. From an outside point of view (out of the culture), Rituals doesn’t
mean anything and are useless. However from inside, Rituals have a very strong signification and are
essential to the group. They can be religious, but not only. It includes also the way people interact
(how they say “hello” to each other for instance). In a business context, rituals could be formal
monthly or weekly meetings for example or informal daily coffee discussions during coffee times.
The three layers Symbols, Heroes and Rituals are most of the time not understandable from outside,
but still visible. They are all together Practices.
On the contrary the cores of culture, Values, are not visible, but explain the way Practices are.

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Culture in groups and organizations
As said before, culture is specific to a group. At this point we can add that every group has a
culture. The first reason is because culture is continuous, meaning that new members of the group
learn and adopt the culture of this group.
Then we can imagine the creation of a new group, composed of people with no culture in common.
In this case we have a mix of several cultures (because culture is continuous, people of this new
group have previously learned a culture from a previous group). The first and intuitive undertaking
would be to find a way to communicate, a shared language. Then shared rules will appear, because
they will be needed to live all together. If they would be fight (and they will be!), the new group will
find a way to handle them, and ideas will come from a culture or another. Every group has what we
can call a culture and no group can escape it.
During their lives, people belong to an undefined number of groups. They belong to a family, to
groups of friends, to companies, to sport teams… Moreover some groups can be easily divided into
several groups. For example in term of national culture, a person can be French, and come from Paris
or from Marseille. In this example, the common way to say hello, which is French, is to kiss on the
cheek. However in some part it implies 2, 3 or 4 kisses.
Following the subject of this thesis, we will now focus on two well defined, or at least quite
easily definable main groups: the one defined by the nationality somebody is and the one defined by
the company somebody is working in.
Corporate culture
Use in Science management
During the 80s, several authors have been interested in the corporate culture. This is the case
of Tom Peters and Robert Waterman, both consultants at McKinsey, who wrote about performance
models in their best seller “In Search of Excellence” (1982) and explain how corporate culture was a
key in the company’s successes. In the same time, others, as Morgan (1979), saw in corporate
business just a new paradigm of organization.
In a report, Eric Delavallée (1995), doctor in management science, enhances the existing paradox
between the number of works dedicated to the notion of corporate culture, and the weak use of it in
science management disciplines. He explains this paradox by the theoretical opposition between
concept of rationality (studied mostly by Hebert Simon in many works of his) and the concept of
culture. He cites in particular Peter and Waterman (1982), who support that models, so called
“rational models” encourage the denigration of the importance of values or Gagliardi (1980) who
makes an opposition between scientific knowledge and cultural knowledge. Shrivastava, Mitroff and
Alverson (1987) even say that culture is an important source of actions "irrational" in organizations.
With the help of Herbert Simon works, Eric Delavallée proposes to study rationality and culture
under a new angle. His hypothesis is to consider differences between rationality and culture the
same way as Durkheim considered science and religion: the differences are not from nature but from
degree.

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To do so, Delavallée uses Simon’s works on rationality. He explains that concept of rationality and
culture cannot be opposed nor dissociated because the rationality is “culturally limited” and the
culture is one of the “the borders of the rationality”, which means that no decision process exists
without cultural and rational dimension.
This hypothesis allows then a new consideration of the corporate culture use in science
management, including business management and development.
Definitions
Jaques (1972) is considered as the first one who explicitly used the concept of corporate
business. For him corporate business is a way of thinking, and habitual and traditional action, shared
by its members, learned and accepted by new members. Since the beginning of the 80’s the concept
has been in the center of many debate. One school of thought belives that sources of the culture is to
be found inside the company itself; Bosche (1984) for example put the autonomy of corporate
business as a premise.
In the other hand, others admit that culture is existing in each company but think that one company
does have always its own culture, in the way that the company is founded by many cultural rules that
are not always able to become together a specific culture. The question is linked to the existing
relationship between national cultures for example, as Hofstede (2005) explain in “Cultures and
Organizations: Software of the mind”.
However, if a cultural analysis of the company can only be enriched by the inclusion of external and
internal cultural levels, according Delavallée (1995), they do not exclude the existence of a culture at
the company. He mix the two schools of thought, saying that corporate business is a concept which
emphasizes what is in common between members of the company on the one hand. He also says
that corporate culture is entirely determined by national environment and economical company
context.
The culture forges itself according a collective learning process to face problems met by the company
(Shein, 1984). This introduces the history angle in the corporate business: the corporate culture is
then a diachronic concept which uses the notion of time to define itself. For Degot (1984), corporate
culture is composed from shared evidences who guide the behavior of individuals in the company,
knowing that those evidences are not always conscious (Schein, 1991).
The definition of corporate business could then include that it is a set of evidence, shared by
members within the company, built throughout its history, in response to problems encountered by
the company and linked, but not only, to his external environment such as national culture
(Delevallée, 1995).

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The levels of corporate business
The different levels of culture exposed by Hofstede are readily applicable to the corporate
culture.
In his French book “La Culture d’entreprise”, Thévenet (1993) distinguishes three types of values in
corporate culture. The first one is declared values, which are visible on formal and official document
and speech and on external communication. The second one is apparent values notably through
Heroes choices, and through the choices made for the best. The last is the operational values, which
can be found in standard management procedures for example; those values have to be interiorized
by members so that it guides their behavior in specific situations.
Rituals manifest themselves in verbal and gestural behaviors. For example some companies organize
birthday parties every month or a dinner with all the employees for Christmas. The rituals in the
company context help to develop the sense of belonging of the employees and give some credits to
events which vehicle the main values of the company.
As explained before, corporate culture is diachronic concept, which is emphasizing partly by the
“Heroes” part of the culture. Indeed the beginnings of the company represent the first experiment
and the first choices made, taking into account the context of the creation, which shows the personal
beliefs and values of the entrepreneur, values that are developed below. The creator is then one of
the Heroes. The characteristics of the founder as his education, training, experience, beliefs and
social positions, are keys to understand more precisely the context that surrounds the bases and thus
it instills in its business. Often, the founder of the company is represented as an iconic figure, share
the methods used, his inventions, his charisma and strong personality. There are "characters" of the
company that are admired and serve as an example, that can be called acquired Heroes , "those who
manufacture, sell and provide service of products" (Deal and Kennedy, 1982) for example.
Symbols are concerning clothing, in China for example, the uniform is still required for everybody in
some companies, furniture, logos, etc.
Use of corporate culture as a key of success
Coherence of the corporate culture
P.Morin (1991) defines a general business model as a system composed of four subsystems:
the culture considered a system itself. He defines the three others as following:
- Formal and informal structures, concerning activities, hierarchy and communication network
- Organizational goals composed of formals goals defined by the managers as well as goals followed
by specific groups within the company.
- Production or management techniques
If as defined by Schein (1984) and as exposed in our “Definitions” part of this literature revue, the
corporate culture is considered as a response to problems encountered by the company, as much as
the three other subsystems. This can be emphasizing by the facts that:

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- it participates to the reduction of complexity of the organization (Degot, 1985)), acting like a
powerful filter protecting the company from internal and external noxious influences
(Martinet, 1984)) and it saves time and energy by saving research of solutions (Morin, 1995).
- It is a coordination tools in the company, that Mintzberg (1982) qualifies as standardization
of knowledge as well as a control tool (Ouchi, 1980)
- It is an important stability factor (Donaldson and Lorsch, 1983) in the way that it is built along
the history of the company: which makes it a base of the past and a successful tool for the
future.
There is a link to be made between the interactions of the culture and the three others subsystems.
First Morin (1991) explains that coherence between structures, goals and techniques is a necessary
condition allowing the creation of a common corporate culture and that the stronger is this
coherence, the stronger is the corporate culture.
Thévenet (1993) considered that there is no logical putting a link between culture and financial
performance of the company. However the idea is to focus on the relations between culture and
management: so the thing is not to have the best type of culture to get the best competitive
advantage, but to identify the impact of the variable on the conditions of the efficiency of the
company in order to take it (corporate culture) into account in their implement (the conditions).
From the strategic management works of Miles and Snow (1978) and Martinet (1984) and the works
concerning the structures from Lawrence and Lorsch (1989) and Mintzberg (1982); Delavallée (1995)
enhance two principles that characterize and allow the efficiency of any organized and finalized
system:
- The “contingency” principle, which links the efficiency of a system to the equation between a
situation and its variables
- The “fit” principle which links the efficiency of a system to the consistency between
variables.
In fact the key of success of corporate culture is to consider the ad equation between the 4
subsystems, and more particularly between corporate culture and the three others.
Shared values, Mc Kinsley Model.
In their book: In Search of Excellence (1982), Tom Peters and Robert H. Waterman insist on
the notion of shared-value, which is the center of organization performance, as shows the McKinley
Model below.

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Figure 3: McKinsley Model
The management mode centers on the shared value, which gives sense to individual and collective
action.
Evolution
Knowing that culture is a factor of stability, one of the key of success is to not let it hindering
to the adaptability and innovation of the company. The meaning is that even culture is a factor of
stability; it does imply that corporate culture cannot evolve. Then according the double principle,
there is no good and universal management techniques, but only a consistency between techniques
of management and corporate culture. Thus, other management techniques offer the perspective of
evolution and so even corporate culture management.
Thévenet (1993) says that we cannot change the culture, because it would suppose that we would be
able to draft the desired state of the culture and that we would know exactly what to do to pass from
the current state to the desired one. To Schein in one other hand, culture can change and evolve
according the different phases of the company development. The thought of one author or the other
seem to be in opposition but actually it just requires a better understanding, meaning that culture
cannot change radically and with certainty (in the way to change it as well as in the reaching state).
But by using a change strategy to directly modify the culture, as projects in the company for example
or by using a change strategy that aims to act one of the three subsystems or more in order to
modify indirectly the culture, you can implement a technique in order to make the culture evolve,
even if the result is not radical and not certain.
To conclude, we have seen that corporate culture exists anyway. There is no good or bad
corporate culture, but the corporate culture has to be in ad equation to corporate strategy. It cannot
be radically changed but can be progressively modified. Hofstede says that it is easier to change
corporate cultures than national ones because the corporate cultures are not as profound and can
adapt more easily to changes around them. They are rooted more deeply in practices than values. In
term of management, corporate culture can be a key of success in the way that it can increase the
sense of belonging and so the well-being of the employees.

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Organizational culture in an international context
The first main studies concerning societies begun in the middle of the twentieth century and
have been followed after. The first common idea was that all kind of societies have faced or face the
same obstacles and only the ways they overcome it depends on the society itself. Following this idea
in 1954, Alex Inkeles and Daniel Levinson, a socio-psycho specialist duo, authors of “National
character: the study of modal personality and sociocultural systems” had for an objective to identify
what obstacles or problems societies had to face. A first draft appears and later confirmed and
completed with G.Hofstede studies of over fifty countries. Nowadays Hofstede work is still dominant
in intercultural management research but is challenged repeatedly. Therefore in the first part we will
expose Hofstede basic models and try then to see in what way the model can be reviewed.
Organizational culture in different countries according to Hofstede
Geert identified in the first place 4 and then 5 mains dimensions that we will here below defined:
- Social inequality: Power distance index
- Uncertainty and ambiguity approach: the avoidance of uncertainty
- Relationship between individual and the group : Individualism vs collectivism
- The concept of masculinity and femininity
- The short term vs long term orientation
Social inequalities
Derived from Mauk Molder studies, the Power Distance Index is the dimension answering the
question: “How to handle the fact that people are unequal?”. This dimension represents the measure
of the inequality degree of power between the person who has the hierarchical power, and the
person who has to obey.
Then he classifies countries with a strong hierarchical distance, such as Asiatic countries (China
Japan) and some European countries. In those countries, the organization is from a pyramidal
structure and a quite big importance is attributed to external signs of status. The countries with a
weaker hierarchical distance, such as Anglo-Saxon countries, show an organization with a moderate
supervision.
The avoidance of uncertainty
The uncertainty approach represents the risks apprehension and the risks management. A
high level of avoidance of uncertainty would mean that the management system requires a set of
standardized procedures and a permanent desire to master the uncertain coming events. This is the
case of countries coming from lateen culture (France, Italy, and Spain) for instance or of South
America countries. In the other hand, Anglo-Saxon countries, India, South-East Asia have a weaker
level of uncertainty avoidance, which means that they accept more easily personal risks taking and
initiative.

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Individualism vs collectivism
Individualism and collectivism represents the relation psycho-sociologic of one individual and
one group in a societal context. Measurement of individualism or collectivism in societies includes
specificities to each pole. The time for yourself (personal life), freedom (work organization), and the
challenge (looking for a fulfilling work) for the individualistic part and training (learning), working
conditions (space, ergonomics...), and recognition of individual talents for the collectivist part.
People’s identities in individualist societies imply independence from others (joining groups is fine,
but individualists choose which groups they join and can pull out of them; collectivists’ assumptions
are that there is inevitably an interdependence between people—from birth, and so individual
talents are only positively recognised if they benefit the group.
These two notions impact differently the working environment (relationship with the hierarchy), the
family (living in groups skills), political area and ideas (role of the group in the private sphere or
autonomy and personal decision) or even the ratio of the conflict (beneficial in the individualistic
pole and avoid not to lose face in collectivist pole).
The work of G. Hofstede defines countries such as United States, Australia, the countries of northern
Europe, France, Italy, Germany and South Africa more focused on individualism while he defines the
Asian countries like Indonesia , Taiwan , Thailand , China and South American countries such as
Colombia, Ecuador, Panama , Venezuela, Peru and Costa Rica more focused on collectivism. The
average polarity includes the countries of Central Europe (Serbia, Slovakia, Czech Republic), some
Mediterranean countries (Portugal, Greece, Spain) or Japan for instance. It is good to know that
individualism represents only about 20% of people in the world. There are important religious and
philosophical reasons for this, but also the fact that poorer countries tend to be more collectivist—
helping each other is vital for survival.
The concept of masculinity and femininity
Masculine pole suggests the salary expectations or requirements (earn more money),
recognition (recognized working skills), evolution (upward mobility) and challenge (challenging work
and personal development). The feminine pole suggests the hierarchy (labor relationships),
collaboration (working in harmony), the quality of life (nice accommodation) and job security.
The concept is bi-dimensional: on the one hand, it does mean the roles of men and women in
societies and one the other hand the values associated with “masculine” and “feminine” attitudes.
Masculinity is all about achievement and having things to reward the achievement, but also doing
things in a powerful, sometimes confrontational and aggressive way. Femininity is less about
achievement, more about modesty, ensuring all are “happy”—therefore work is more harmonious,
consensus-driven.
Unrelated to the economic development of a country, Japan or China has been found with a high
index of masculinity, while a high index of femininity has be revealed in France, Spain, Peru for
example.

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The concept of short term and long term orientation
Geert Hofstede noted that the concept of economic growth, combined with values of
perseverance, economy, respect of the status, sense of shame and also a respect for tradition,
politeness reciprocity and individual discipline, does not appear equally in every country. Short term
oriented countries as Nigeria, Egypt, Anglo-Saxon countries for example have more a sense of rigor
and personal stability, protection of his personal image, respect for traditions, direct result research
while long term oriented countries (as China or France) have more the sense of saving, of feeling
shame of perseverance.
Research limits
All the research works in term of international management is mostly based on Hofstede
studies. However as mentioned by Lilian, professor of the university Jean Moulin Lyon, the
intercultural management researches suffer of numerous critics. According to her, a quite fragile and
polymorph concept requires a solid stay in order to be concretely used in research. She also
mentioned that it is not really the case concerning national culture. Indeed national culture is often
built as an independent and homogeneous block (such as “Chinese culture” for example). Research
is also conceived as corresponding exactly to the political borders of the nations (French culture,
Spanish culture…) without considering other internal variations such as geographic or social
differences. The static mode of research, such as temporal stativity is also criticized. Indeed the
studies have been made more than 30 years ago, can we not consider a change of the result between
now and 30 years ago, and can we not consider the change between generations?
Even M. Peterson, professor of the “Hofstede education” part at Maastricht University make some
recommendation for the future of the researches: clarify links between individuals and national
culture, find alternatives to the study of “values”, develop qualitative approach (reminding us that
Hofstede studies were quantitative only), reconsider cultural borders, modelize intercultural
dynamics and better use the local idea.
As we are conscious of the limits thats present intercultural research, it is to be precised that
it is not the goal of our work to determine how true and reliable are the previous research on
national culture but how important is this concept in the context of international development.
Intercultural research have still some work before being a closed subject, however intercultural
management has already proved its usefulness. In the following part, we will study the case of the
company Renault, which successfully complete its alliance with Nissan after knowing a big failure
with Volvo.
Intercultural management: case study Renault-Nissan
A success story
In 1999, the French company Renault and the Japanese company Nissan announce that they
will come closer. The agreement they signed is called “alliance” and they plan a gradual
strengthening of the cooperation of the two companies.

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These announce saved Nissan from bankruptcy otherwise inevitable. Indeed since 26 years before,
Nissan lost market shares in Japan, it was its seventh year deficit in eight year and its debt amounted
20 billion euros. In the same time, Renault had also difficult time even though the situation was
getting better. Indeed in 1984, the company had a very difficult year and survived only thanks to the
help of the government, and in 1993, his rapprochement with Volvo failed. Subsequently, the
company was reorganized but still fragile.
This cooperation was ambitious and aimed to be among the top 3 cars manufacturers in terms of
quality and attractiveness of products and services in each region of the world and each market
segment, with key technologies in engines, electronics and environment areas.
In March 1999, Renault invested 5 billion euros to acquire 36,8 % of Nissan’s capital. Even if Renault
investment was necessary to help Nissan and that the first company was the driver of this alliance,
since the very beginning, the alliance was defined as a balanced relationship between the two
companies, with the priority to perform. The alliance was based on trust, honesty and respect and
that is probably what can explain its success.
The alliance directory was composed of Louis Schweitzer, the Renault CEO and Carlos Ghosn, the
Nissan CEO. In 2002, the partners create the company Renault-Nissan and in 2005 Carlos Ghosn was
nominated as Renault CEO and stayed Nissan CEO as well.
The success is also based on the sharing and complementary of expertize. For instance Nissan piloted
the development of new petrol engines whereas Renault piloted the development of diesel engines.
Another example is the active participation of Nissan in the development of the first crossover of
Renault that was thought, designed and manufactured by Renault group.
If the Renault-Nissan Alliance was an indisputable success, this is not without a previous
failure, from which they learned a lot and which need to be reminded. Indeed at the end of 1993, the
merger Volvo-Renault was cancelled after the public announcement 3 months earlier. According to
the analysis of Grange, cultural distances between Sweden and France have been under estimated
and poorly managed, which is largely responsible of the failure of the merger. Following a
comparison between the two countries in terms of indices hierarchical distance, masculinity and
uncertainty avoidance, Grange found substantial differences in their values and designs those
stakeholders were not taken into account.
What could have been a hindrance to success
During the implementation of the cooperation actions, many cultural differences emerged
between French and Japanese management, way of doing and way of thinking due to countries’
cultures or companies’ culture. Although these differences are not exhaustive, bellow is a summary
overview:

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French/Renault Japanese/Nissan
Speed of execution after
decision making
French are very conceptual. For
them when a decision is taken,
it a base to discuss.
When the decision is taken,
Japanese are very fast in the
execution.
Hierarchy They are used to have direct
contact with superior
managers.
The Japanese are accustomed
to an extremely hierarchical
system.
Work group They are not used to work with
people from other department.
Moreover the human factor is
very important; they need to
appreciate people to work well
with them.
They are always efficient
working in group, whoever they
are working with.
Commitment and pragmatism Not known. Commitment: Everybody keep
their commitment, even they
have to work the night to reach
the goal or ask for extra
workers.
Pragmatism: If a tool or a
process made their proof
before, they we can use it
without discussion.
Language used in the company French Japanese
Customer approach Manage quality, problem
solving, marketing, evolution of
network.
Quality only.
Carriers and salary evolution Performance related Age related
Figure 4: Synthetic table, French vs Japanese difference, inspired by Barmeyer & Mayrhofer (2008).
More than cultural differences, the position of Nissan was very sensitive. Although Renault
was the driver at the beginning of the alliance and they invested money in Nissan, this was not an
acquisition and both Nissan and Renault were in the heart as equal. Even this fact was clear; the first
step for a success was the Nissan recovery.

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Inter cultural management and success
Because they already had the sad experience with Volvo, Renault knew that a merger with
Nissan was doomed to failure, and has chosen alliance. The choice was strategically necessary but
not sufficient to ensure the success. Therefore Renault and Nissan worked hard on intercultural
management and an action plan was developed to override cultural differences and to take benefits
from complementarities from the two companies.
First of all “Identity” is the key world. Indeed as said before, the alliance is based on equity and
Renault did not want to be seen as the dominator. The direction wanted that each company keep a
kind of cultural and organizational autonomy: “Renault stays Renault, Nissan stays Nissan”. Then
concerning the Alliance, the word is knowingly chosen and the power is equally separate: the
directory is composed with the same number of representatives of each culture. Moreover an
interesting point to lift is that the legal entity Renault-Nissan is located in Netherland, which is a
neutral area.
In July 1999 (the date is important because it is only a few months after the announcement, so it was
a priority for the directory), the representatives of both companies signed the charter if the alliance,
worked out according 3 key points:
- The cooperation and the mutual respect
- The identities preservations
- The cultural complementarity by cross cultural learning
This charter is a line of behavior and is largely communicated through speeches from
representatives and through intern communication displays.
For instance for its recovery, Nissan had to reduce its costs of 20%. Therefore they had to reduce the
power of the “keiretsu”. The “keiretsu” is a Japanese concept which can be explained as a group of
companies sharing common values, business relationships and manage competitor’s influences.
Dismantled “Keiretsu” has not been easy and not really accepted by Japanese people. Thus, in order
to not be too rude with traditions, it has been decided to keep the contracts with some of capable
suppliers.
Another example of cultural difficulty is the way the Japanese people see their career evolution as
well as the salary evolution. Indeed the criteria for evolution in Japan are mostly the age and the
seniority and therefore Japanese did not really understand the performance related evolution. This
point of the culture had to be changed in order to improve performance of the company because I
was better if statuses in the company are defined by skills and not by society status. However it was
very difficult for them to accept to be managed by young and foreign managers. Carlos Ghosn and his
teams have shown a lot of finesse and strategy in order to inculcate the concept of the performance-
related evolution concept. They implemented a system of bonuses, and stock option plans were set
up. There were indexed both on manufacture results and on Nissan results, and that is how
performance became a real value for the company and its employees, even stronger than Japanese
culture.

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The good communication was also a key factor of the success because it was present in all the step of
integration, to diffuse and exchange information, ideas and points of view, to take decisions and to
motivate teams. This is not only a question a verbal language, even it is the visible part of the
iceberg. Indeed more than very different languages, the cultures make the understanding different
for a same idea, concept or information. In order to face the problem, English has been used but a
kind of balanced linguistic pluralism exists in some project teams because they have a strong
principal: “English is a tool, not a rule”. Moreover a management guide, which is a kind of dictionary
with key words, has been distributed to avoid the semantic traps.
Furthermore Carlos Ghosn set up the so called CCT “Cross Company Teams”. There gathered in the
alliance, engineers and managers coming both from France and Japan to work together and find out
solutions thanks to their complementarity. Renault and Nissan also developed exchanges between
their employees, for instance 36 French people had been send to Japan and 29 Japanese people
came in France in order to encourage the exchange of good practices and favor mutual
understanding.
To conclude, obviously the success of the alliance between Renault and Nissan is due to a
good intercultural management. The management of diversity and complementarity has been was in
the center and since from the very beginning of the negotiation. Of course Carlos Ghosn was the
driver and it would be inappropriate not to underline his positive effect. He is French-Lebanese-
Brazilian and can speak not less than seven foreign languages and worked in several different
countries. He was obviously the man of the situation to face the intercultural management. It is an
important point to underline: culturally competent leadership is essential in such operations.

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B. Information Technologies
This second party of our literature revue will allow us to understand what is the meaning and the
use of Information Technologies (called IT) and we will identity the factors which conduct companies
to develop their IT capabilities and how it influences business performances.
IT capabilities
The definitions of IT capabilities are various in the academic literature. Zhang et al (2007)
presented a first synthesis. According to the authors, IT capabilities can be seen in two phases. The
first one would be to see IT capabilities as management capabilities (Sambamurthy and Zmud, 1992;
Ross et al. 1996) and the second would be as technical capabilities (Teo and Kind, 1997; Sabherwal
and Kirs, 1994). In this first synthesis the authors mostly focus on the technical capabilities, meaning
how needed are the IT for the manipulation, the storage and the communication of the information
within the organization. The IT can then be a help to improve the quantity and the quality of the
informational processes within an organization (Galbraith, 1977), which have a positive link on the
performance of the organization.
Later in 2008, Han et al. presented a second synthesis; more axed on the management and IT
capabilities. To Basselier et al. (2001), the development of IT capabilities has to go through the
development of the IT applications knowledge, through the knowledge of IT management, through
the knowledge access and finally the IT management itself.
In their works, Lacity and Willcocks (2001) deal with the outsourced IT in an international context.
Following several studies, the authors try to understand better the outsourcing phenomena and
especially the impact on the concerned organization. Therefore, and that is the part which interests
us for our thesis, they define the functions of the IT as follow:
- Strategic information system: answering delivery need, business opportunities, etc.
- Information management system: everything linked to the IT governance with the
organization, control, communication, etc.
- Information technology system: architecture, integration of IT into the organization, etc.
- Services strategy linked to the IT: relationship with suppliers, developed contract, market
evolution etc.
Secondly the authors analyzed the essential capabilities concerning all IT functions with the
organization. They identified three main dimensions, both strategic and technic: the business vision
and opportunities linked to the IT, the architecture design (which is the more important point within
an international context) and finally the IT services delivery.
Lacity and Willcocks (2001) focus on outsourced IT, which is not exactly the part we are willing to
emphasize, however their work allow us to understand better the role of IT in an international
context. Indeed in order to reach the international strategy objectives, an organization has to adapt
its IT accordingly.

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For Ross et al. (1996), the capabilities are first of all IT human resources, the technological assets and
the partnership between the functions and the organization. Feeny and Willcocks (1998) one the
other hand, distinguish nine capabilities within the organization: the leadership, the business system
knowledge, the relationship building, the architecture planning, the IT functioning, the information
buying, the contract (realization and management) and finally the development. Bharadwaj (2000)
reinforces this typology by adding the notions of IT infrastructures, IT human resources and
intangibles resources. More recently, Melville et al. (2004) separate easily human resources and
technological resources.
The first point in common between those definitions which has to be enlightened is that they all
come from studies on more or less big companies. Those definitions are quite disparate concerning
organizational capabilities linked to the IT, they oriented IT capabilities as much as management,
technical or human resources capabilities. Thus, it still allows to define a first level of analyze of what
are the capabilities.
Within the framework of our study, IT capabilities are considered as human expertise and
technologies as entire managerial resources. Even if this study go back to 1999, the definition is quite
still up to date and we join Bharadwaj et al. (1999) understanding when he defines IT capabilities as
“a firm’s ability to acquire, deploy, and leverage its IT-related resources in combination with other
resources and capabilities in order to achieve business objectives”. He also outlines the six
dimensions of this concept:
- The IT-business partnerships
- The external IT partners
- The strategic thought between business and IT
- The integration of IT processes and business
- The IT management
- The IT infrastructure
In 2000, he modified and completed his own definition to characterize IT capability as “[the] ability to
mobilize and deploy IT-based resources in combination or co-present with other resources and
capabilities.”
In his French thesis, in the context of his doctorate of Science of administration, Vincent DUTOT
completed the definition of Bharadwaj and defined more precisely each dimension as follows:

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Considered dimension Definition
The IT-business partnerships Organization capability to promote exchanges
between the technologies developers and the
users (Bharadwaj et al. 1999)
Consideration of the collaboration between the
IT experts and the development of the user’s
understanding of the IT potential (Zhang et al.
2007)
The external IT partners Technological links between the organization and
business partners (Bharadwaj et al., 1999)
Either speaking of extranets or any tool to
facilitate communication and knowledge sharing
(Zaheer and Venkatraman, 1994)
The strategical thought between business and IT Importance of the integration between IT and
business strategy (Teo and King, 1997), as well as
enhancement of the contribution of IT in creating
organizational value (Bharadwaj et al. 1999)
The integration of IT processes and business Capability of the organization to rationalize the
current processes and foster transversal
processes (Grover et al. 1995)
The IT management Capability to implement IT project practices, the
control and evaluation of the systems
(Bharadwaj et al. 1999)
The IT infrastructure Existing infrastructure and its components (Ross
et al. 1996; Bharadwaj, 2000)
Figure 5: Presentation of IT capabilities dimensions (inspired by Zhang et al. 2007)
IT capabilities linked to performance
Now that we precisely explain the different meanings of IT capability within an organization,
we will make an overview of the studies enlightening the links between IT capability and
performance.
Ravichandran and Lertwongsatien (2005) shown that the IT support and the development of key
skills (technological and managerial) can improve the performance (improvement of internal
management, better decision making, and better results). Moreover, the authors suggest that
variations of organizational performance are linked to the way in which the IT are used. Melville et
al. (2004) bring the idea that IT and additional resources of an organization can affect the efficiency
of business processes and thus, improve organizational performance. Collaboration between
employees, supported by technology, can also reinforce the performance (in term of financial results;
Sanders and Premus, 2005). Finally, other studies lend further legitimize the fact that IT capabilities
enable the improvement of the performance (in term of market share and financial results;
Santhanam and Hartono , 2003; Tsai , 2004).

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It has been shown that the use of IT in order to better communicate has a positive effect on the
performance of the organization (Andersen, 2005; Gurbaxani and Whang , 1991).
Other studies have shown that the control allowed a greater performance (mainly operational
performance) and the work of Pangarkar and Klein (2004) emphasize the influence of control on
international joint ventures. For them, the use of Tl enables a better control of the partner and of the
operations and brings an improvement of the performance of the relationship.
Raghunathan (1999), Schrader (2001) and Sanders and Premus (2005) interests focused on the link
between collaboration, IT and performance. The first shown that by using IT in order to improve both
internal and external collaboration, the company would get higher performance (namely: better
information and speed of decision making). However, it has to be noticed that the developed model
has not been tested. On the other hand, Sanders and Premus (2005) realized a synthesis of the
authors who dealt with the relationship between collaboration and performance (Stank, Keller and
Daugherty, 2001) and between Tl and performance (Bharadwaj, 2000; Kearns and Lederer, 2003; Ives
and Jarvenpaa, 1991) before presenting their model that shows basically the outlines of the one
developed by Raghunathan (1999) with the difference that this time, the model has been tested and
the model shown indeed a positive relationship between Tl, collaboration and performance.
This literature revue of IT capabilities has proved that a link exists between the IT capabilities of a
company and its performance level. Indeed it has be proved that IT capabilities has a positive effect
on performance of a company, including (but not limited to) information accessibility, control,
decision making and financial results.

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C. Organizational and managerial challenges in an international
business development context
This third part of our literature revue will enable us to understand the challenges that companies
have to face in the context of international development and in what way the combination of IT
capabilities and cultural and intercultural management enable companies to take up those
challenges.
An organization facing a strategic choice has to be aware of the different problems and
challenges that it will probably come up againt. Of course we can name economic or political
problems, however in the framework of our study; we have chosen to focus on organizational and
managerial challenges only. In this context we will not focus our literature revue by understanding
mode of entries strategic choice neither on environment influences.
Identify organizational and managerial challenges
This part is to understand the challenges met by a company in an international development
context. The idea is to understand which factors influence success or failure of an international
strategy development. Our interest here will be on management and organization, on both on
internal and external factors affecting the company, including the implementation of the changes
(internal structure modification, modification of the links with partners, etc.).
The following table summarizes the problems met by professionals and explained in literature:
Literature references Identified management issues
Hewitt P., Secretary of State for Trade and
Industry, UK (2005)
- Harder management control
- Negative effect on employees morale
- Increasing of potential conflicts
Gartner Group, during the Gartner Outsourcing
Summit (2004)
- Poor project management
- Bad risks consideration
- Lack of communication
Ricciuti M. et Yamammoto M. (2004) - Lack of communication in real time (loss
of time)
- Lack of control management (the
authors explain that a better control,
they could alert the risks and better
manage the problems)
- Bag timing management
- No knowledge sharing
Bednarz, A. (2005) - Poor communication (no knowledge
sharing)
- Lack of expertize of the partners : lack of
knowledge sharing
World Investment Report 2004 :The Shift Toward
Services (2004)
- Need of activity control (crucial,
especially when transaction cost are high
and information are sensitive)

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- Need a high level of interaction with
partners : communication is essential
Pearlson et Saunders (2004) - Communication : interactions
management and time différences
- Technologies : coherence between IT
and structure
- Diversity of the teams: difficulty to
establish a global culture, trust issues,
responsibilities sharing
Blunden (2004) - Quality control
- Knowledge transfert
Deutsche Bank Research (2004) - Loss of control
Figure 7 : Identification of management issues
This table emphasizes the different variables in the success of international development strategy. To
summarize, we can see that challenges are concerning mostly collaboration (in term of knowledge
sharing and transfer, also called knowledge management) control, communication and management
in the general meaning of the word (relationship, projects, etc.).
In order to complete the identification of challenges, in his studies, Dutot analyzes five companies in
their international development (namely: Axa, Crédit Agricole, Schneider Electric, BNP Paribas and
Danone), which allows him to identify six challenges that companies has to face:
- The relationship with the partner(s), which means the collaboration level to implement in
order to interact quickly and smoothly
- The conflicts in management, mostly linked to a change management inherent In new
strategy implementation
- Communication, meaning the ad equation of the communication and the situation and the
communication tools to handle this communication
- Distance (The integration of virtual work teams)
- Control, both internal (production, quality management tools for instance) and external
(respect of the contract, partner follow up, etc.)
- Environment
The combination of IT capabilities and cultural and intercultural management
Dutot (2011), analyzes in what way IT is a support to face the organizational challenges met
by companies in the context of business international development. The study emphasize indeed
that IT is a support but is not always enough.
In his definition of IT capabilities as “[the] ability to mobilize and deploy IT-based resources in
combination or co-present with other resources and capabilities” (2000), Bharadwaj mentioned the
existence of others resources. He also introduced the idea of a combination or co presence without
really taking an active part in.
Hébert (2002) explains that the inconsistencies between the internationalization strategy and the
resources and skills of the company, explain in most cases the failures or disappointed expectations

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abroad. His diagnosis is that the development of resources and skills to support international
development are the first strategic challenge abroad.
Using previous researches and our literature revue, we want to present the way to face international
business development organizational challenges as “The ability to mobilize and deploy the
combination of IT-based and cultural and intercultural-based resources and capabilities in order to
face both rational and irrational challenges”.
We consider IT management as structural responses and culture management more as managerial
responses. And it is the combination of the two dimensions which allows facing successfully
challenges.

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D. Differences between small and medium companies and multinational
companies
In this last part of our literature revue, we will try to identify the intrinsic differences between
small and medium companies and big companies and its consequences in term of management in
international development context.
SEMs companies: definitions
Many books and studies use the term Small and Medium companies as we do in our thesis,
without really explaining what the definition is. In his book, Ruth Hillary (2000) identifies two
categories of definition: the theoretical one and the operational one.
In term of theory, in 1996 the EU defined the SEMs by the numbers of employees (less than 250), the
turnover (less than 40 million euros) or the balance sheet (less than 27 million euros) and the
ownership. However the author explains that this definition does not take into consideration the
range of countries nor the range of sectors. As our thesis is in the context of international context
development, we found it relevant to emphasize this idea for the range of countries. For instance in
term of number of employees, Danish government considers a company as SME if the number is
fewer than 500, while in Brazil it is between 1 and 100. Indonesia on the other hand does not include
the number of employees at all in its definition, but defines companies by its assets. In our case and
in context of our thesis, we chose not to specify precisely the range of sectors of the range of
countries of what we define as SEMs, but to work with the more operational sense of the definition.
In Mintzberg’s (1982) definition of the types and structure of organizations, SEMs are an
entrepreneurial configuration in which the structure is defined as very simple and flexible and with
quite a flat hierarchical pyramid. The importance of the leader is high because decisional and
strategic power is focused on him. By nature (small size and limited number of employees), a “local”
SMEs strategy is intuitive, with quite simple and non–formalized formulated Information Systems
and which do not need standard written procedures. Knowledge management is under-developed
because not needed. Ein-Dor and Segev (1982) identified SMEs as more centralized with very simple
organizational structure requiring less administrative functions.
In fact, according to (Welsh et White, 1981), the small size of the company creates it is a condition
that he qualified as “poor in resources”. This state manifest itself through ad hoc financing, a lack of
management and a lack of training of the employees (Delone, 1981; Dianich and Gupta, 1983; Vogel,
1987), which create vulnerability of the SEM head on the environment and cause instability. Indeed
the authors explained that one small mistake may be fatal for the SEM. The small size seems to be a
factor of submission to the environment. According to Marchesnay (1992), small companies suffer
environmental constraints in which they evolve: a big company drafts its environment while a
medium arrange its and a small integrates it.

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Raymond (1987) characterized SEMs by a very low organizational level of maturity. According to him
planning and control processes are generally less formalized and quantified, and the required data
for decision taking are often unavailable. Later in 1990, Raymond et al. identified three dimensions of
specificities of SMEs: organizational, decisional and individual. SEMs are indeed characterized by the
pre dominant role of one individual in the organization (namely the entrepreneur or the owner)
(Decks, 1976) and he consequently has a huge impact on decisions, which are most of the time based
on his experience, judgment or intuition (Robinson, 1979).
The table below summarizes the differences:
SEMs Big companies
Control Less control Control management
Decision making One individual (entrepreneur or
owner)
Based on experience, judgment or
intuition
Decision making process lies on a
group of leaders
Better access to information to
help the decision
Hierarchy Flat hierarchic pyramid Several levels
Structure and
organization
Non written processes
Informal
Formal
Resources Less human and material resources
available
Less financial resources
More human and material
resources available
More financial resources
Potential mistake impacts Big impact Relative small impact
Head on Environment
reaction
Submission Control or at least arrangement
Adaptability High Quite low
Strategy Short term, intuitive and not
explicitly formulated (known by
the leader)
Long term, explicitly formulated
and communicated
Figure 8: Table inspired by (Decks, 1976; Robinson, 1979; Raymond, 1987; Ein-Dor and Segev, 1982;
Welsh et White, 1981; Marchesnay, 1992; et al.)
Finally, the common part of all definition of SEMs in the financial dimension: SEMs have less financial
resources than big companies.
SEMs companies in an international development context
In the context of international development, the disadvantages with which SMEs are
confronted are accentuated and some differences become issues. Indeed if in a “local” context, some
differences can be explained because they are not useful (for instance in term of organization), an
SME doesn’t need formal written procedures or very clear guidelines because the leader manage to
draw the line day after day.
The first characteristic of international development probably is the geographical distance, which
explains the new needs of companies. In term of structure and organization, procedures have to be

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written and formalized and strategy has to be explicitly formulated. Due to bigger investment, the
potential mistake impacts are even bigger.

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III. Hypothesis
In the literature revue we explained the concept of values and culture, and more especially
the concepts of corporate business and intercultural management as key performance of an
organization (C1).
In a second part, we presented the concept of Information Technologies (IT) and how essential they
were to the business performance (C2).
After presenting the challenges faced by companies (studies made mostly for big companies) to
reach performance in the context of international development (C3) and by adding all those
researches (C1 + C2 +C3), our first hypothesis is as follows:
IT management and intercultural management (independently) are necessary but not
sufficient conditions of organization performance; however the combination of IT management and
cultural and intercultural management (including corporate culture management) is what allows
companies to rise to challenge of companies in term of intercultural development, so they have no
choice but to master them in order to ensure international development sustainability. (H1)
In our last part of literature revue, we overviewed intrinsic differences between Small and medium
companies and big companies, and can easily identify the financial resources (which impact human
and material resources) as the biggest difference. Moreover in term of international development we
can see that SEMs by their nature, has to face additional challenges, namely organizational and
structural challenges. (C4)
Following these intrinsic differences (C4) and our first hypothesis (H1), we present our second
hypothesis as follow:
Differences in term of challenges between S&M companies and big companies are not in the
nature of the challenge but lies in:
- The consequences if the challenges are not faced (bigger impact on a S&M company
because of a bigger investments proportionally to their financial resources)
- The available and provided financial resources to ensure material and human resources.
Moreover SEMs have to face additional challenges. (H2)
Finally as S&M companies have no choices to rise the challenges and to have human and
material resources (to answer IT and cultural challenges and so ensure a successful and sustainable
international business development): the idea is then to find alternative solutions to get the same
human resources competencies (IT and cultural, we considered following the literature revue that IT
capabilities pre-requires organizational capabilities) but with less financial resources. (H3)

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Our opening will allow us to introduce some food for thought for future research, how can
small and medium companies face the lack of financial resources while they keep facing the same
challenge as big companies in term of international development?
Figure 9 : Recapitulative schema

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IV. Research Method
Concerning the method research, the choice of a qualitative study using the semi-directive
individual interviews method has been made. This method takes knowledge of business practices,
not theoretically but pragmatically and compares profiles and ideas according to 4 mains angles:
- Size (typology) of the company
- Expatriation or “Impatriation”
- Experience, age and maturity of the subject
- Nationality
We interviewed 5 different profiles.
In contrast to a quantitative study, which would have given more representative data, this method
allows to understand the experiences and interpretations of individuals. In order to be able to go
deeper into each individual experiences, interviews were individual. The speech of the person is
respected; it keeps its own dynamic and its own frames of reference. The goal is to move from
different individual experiences to different business method application.
This research method presents some limits. Indeed as we will not have a large sample, that might be
not 100% representative. More over the subjective part brought by the interviewer and the analyze
might influence the results. However it will allow us to provide a first approach, which could later be
confirm by a quantitate study or completed by another qualitative study.
The interviews have been conducted thanks to a semi-directive interview guide (cf. annex 1) in order
to be consistent during the analysis phase. The guides have been built in two steps:
- Definition of what we were looking for, the goals we wanted to reach (in green in the
interview guide)
- Redaction of ad hoc questions, clear and simple and not oriented
Before the beginning of the interviews, the subjects have been asked in which language they were
more comfortable with, therefore some interview has been conduct in English and some in French.
As the identity of the interviewee does not influence the pertinence nor of the interview neither of
the analysis, every interview is anonymous. A brief presentation of the profile is made at the
beginning of each interview.
Interviews have been recorded with the consent of each participant, and the interviewer has then
transcribed them by written respecting the formulations of the person.
The analysis will be following 3 steps: content analysis, comprehensive analysis and comparative
analysis.

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V. Results and Analyze
In order to analyze our results, we will first present and analyze the background of the
interviewed. Then following our interview guide, we will present and analyze their experience, their
explicit and implicit thoughts and opinions.
A. Presentation of the interviewed
A1 is a French 23 year old woman. She is currently working in Jamaica for Vinci under a VIE contract.
She worked as an intern for Decathlon SA in Shanghai during 8 months and for a SEM for 5 months in
South Asia. She exclusively worked abroad for French companies and has the experience in several
continents. She is a young graduate from an engineering school and is currently following a Master of
Science of project and business development in Business School in parallel with her job.
A2 is a French 30 year old engineer in supply chain management. He worked already for 4
companies. In 2005 in started his career in Romania, working for Renault for two years. After his first
experience he joined OGIP consulting, a French SME for which he developed the business in and
opened a subsidiary in Romania. After 4,5 year in Romania he came back in France, continued
working for the same company for a year based in France and left the consulting word in 2011 to
work on the French production site of a German familial group. Since 2012 he has been working for
Nexan in an international context as he exports 60% of his production abroad. A2is a manager, he
has experience is France and abroad, in big companies and in SME and has experienced business
development by himself.
A3 is a Colombian. He is 30 year old and is technical supervisor, who started as a storekeeper. He is
working for WMI in Jamaica, which is a subsidiary of Vinci but is employed by Fluidis. He has worked
for this company since 2001, just after finishing school and already worked in Panama, Ecuador,
Colombia, and Jamaica.
A4 is a French 27 year old woman. She is graduated from an engineering school and is currently
working for Vinci in Jamaica as a purchase manager. She has always worked abroad: she did 3
internships abroad, including one in Singapore in a local company and worked for two years for Vinci
in a context of joint- venture in Qatar. And she studied for a semester in Argentina. Thus, she never
worked abroad but worked for both French and local company and experienced several continents.
A5 is a Russian woman. She is 30 and is in charge of international career in the human resources (HR)
department of Vinci. After her Russian master degree, she studied for 2 years in France and worked
for Vinci since 3 years. She started as an intern in the operational Russian division based in France.
She is still based in France, but did a 3 months mission in Moscow to assist a project manager during
the start-up phase of a project.

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Profile Typology of the
companies they
have been
working for
Expatriation/
impatriation
experiences
Level of responsability, age
and hierarchical level
Nationality
A1 SME and big
companies
French company
only
Expatriation 23 year
Young gratuated
Engineer
French
A2 SME and big
companies
Multinationalities
companies
Engineer
Business developer and
Manager
French
A3 Big companies
ans SMEs
Expatriation 30 year old Colombian
A4 Big companies
and SME
companies
Engineer
Manager
French
A5 Big company Impatriation 30 year
Master degree
HR responsible
Russian
Figure 10: Profiles of the interviewed
B. Human resources
International interest
Cultural discovery
Interviewed shown a great interest of working abroad. A5 said that she came in France
because “[she] was fascinated about France”. A1 also mentioned that she interested herself to
cultural differences and how she wanted also to learn more, it seems that for her it was an addiction,
as if she worried not to have time enough to discover the world.
A4 indicated us that she had developed a passion for travelling and that was the main reason she was
an expatriate. For her most important is not to be bored in her life, to always discover more about
cultures and learn to be tolerant. She likes to learn from people she works with. She was really
enthusiastic answering this part of the interview and she is motivated by challenges.
At one point she mentioned that its takes quite a lot of energy to adapt herself to be confronted to
intercultural environment. And that she likes it because she is young. For her there is a link between
the age and international interest. She told us that an old expatriate may certainly not have the same
point of view as her, that they are more blasé because they usually do not work abroad for fun. She
did not precise what she was thinking but other motivation could be money as well as the interest in
the work itself apart from the environment.

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Justine GILBERT
We heard this same notion of age during the interview with A3, who told us that « changing your
habits, adapt yourself to a new country is kind of a boring process now that I am 30.”
Money
While she was more interested by cultural differences, A4 still indicated that earning a lot of
money was a nice part of expatriation as well: “And well, we earn a good living” she said.
She then explained that after all, financial part was not that important. She even mentioned that
even in Jamaica, conditions offered by the company are exceptional, she would have accepted
anyway. She seems very serious and honest about it. For her the most important is to have a descent
salary, which allows her to save a little bit of money.
A1 mentioned the importance of money as well. For her the amount doesn’t have to be incredible.
When she was looking for an internship, her will was to be paid just enough to o achieve a breakeven
financial position considering all the expenses linked to the fact to live abroad (flight ticket, visa,
etc…). But she also added that lots of her classmate would have accepted for less.
For A3, « Money is also an argument. » Even though he said that “From a personal point of view, [he
is] curious and glad to discover other cultures”, he mentioned quite a lot of negative points which let
us know that money is his main motivation. Indeed he said that it was difficult for him to have left his
wife and daughter in Colombia and that he send them money every month.
Responsibilities
Responsibility is also one important source of motivation.
A2 mentioned that “Working in an international context enabled [him] to get rapidly high
responsibilities and very challenging missions.” One of the reasons which could explain it could be
that “in such a context, the links to the hierarchy/top management are made shorter and simpler.”
A4 shares the same point of view. When we asked what she liked about her job, she answered that
she likes having responsibilities and to be a manager. First she said it was a chance, and after a few
second she corrected herself and analyzed that this was no chance but it was enhance by the fact to
work abroad. For her it can be explain by the fact that is the opportunity to rise on the top. She also
mentioned that there are fewer competitors.
A1 also mentioned that from a professional point of view, it has been a chance to do an internship
abroad because it allowed her to get responsibilities that she would have never had at the same level
in France.
In term of impatriation (a foreigner working in a local company), the same feeling is shared. A5
explained us that she will go back to Russia eventually, and:” It will allow [her] to have more
responsibilities and to continue a great career”.

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To conclude we can say that carrier opportunities, curiosity and money are source of motivation for
expatriates or impatriates. A3 has quite a particular situation and work abroad mainly because it
allows him to earn money in order to send to its family stayed in Colombia. While the others work or
worked abroad mainly for discoveries. Thus, it appears that his knowledge in term of management
with a the general meaning was quite limited to let us exploit its interview.
Recruitment
Supply and offer
We saw from several interviews that to find a job as an expatriate/impatriate e is not easy.
A4 explain quite clearly that she has the impression that the supply coming from students and
employees who wants to try expatriation is bigger that the offers (from the company). She also
mentioned that it depend on the country, because in anyway, this is the case for developed countries
such as the USA or Australia but may be offer is bigger when it is in less developed countries, India
for example.
In one way, the experience of A1 follows the same direction in the way that she found it difficult to
find an internship satisfying its requirements. She found quite easily some internships but the
indemnity offered by the company was not enough to liv e and gave us the example of an offer of
1000$ for an internship on San Francisco. She finally accepted an internship in Cambodia, which does
not mean that the company paid more but that the amount necessary to live there is lower.
This part introduces the importance of the countries we are talking about. It seems that supply and
offer are not the same according to the countries.
Type of contract and cost of human resources
The internship seems to be the best option for young people who have the wish to work
abroad. A5 accepted a job in France after doing an internship in the same company.
Expatriate contract seems the more known contract, and known to be expensive. A4 for example,
admit that what the company offer is a lot of financial advantages, including the car, the gasoline, the
apartment, an helper, etc. By comparing with other type of contract, A5 mentioned also all the
expenses like to an expatriation: « especially when you consider all the expenses link the visa fees for
the family, the school fees for the French kids...”
A5 explained us that in Vinci, there is the "Vinci mobility" contract: « It is used for what we called
"third nationality", for example a British who work in Malaysia and for "impatriate" like [her].” She
precised that “It is a great deal for the company and for the employees, not as expensive as an
expatriate contract but with more advantages than a local contract.”
For her “Foreign employees who work in their native country after having been impatriated is gold
for the company. They know very well France culture, corporate culture and local culture as well,
which is a key of success”.

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Without mentioning the type of contract, A4 explicitly indicated the young people are cheaper,
saying that “A young is cheaper, so they try to push us, to give us more responsibilities as they can so
that we are cost effective.”
A1, mentioned a type of French contract which is called VIE, meaning International Voluntaries in
Company. This is a time limited contract, proposed by the government and which is exempted of
taxes. “Normally it is more for SMEs, it allows prospection for example, but in practice, big
companies take profit of this system. […], which is a good thing because at [her] age [she] would
never had found and expatriate contract.”
To conclude, human resources are a big cost center, and especially in the context of international
development. Through the interviews we can identify several criteria influencing the cost, the ag,
which means the experience, but also the family consideration, the type of contract, the financial
advantages offered by the company, etc.
C. Intercultural management
Human resources
A company who plan to use human resources abroad consider the intercultural choc which
can imply.
In the recruiting research, a company will not look for the same profile for a job in local or abroad,
even if the job is the same. As A5 explained, « The difference is more in the profile we are looking for
itself. In case of an international recruitment, and when it is an external candidate, we focus on
international approach. Does he already worked abroad? ».
Once the candidate is chosen, some companies have trainings which allow to prepare the future
expatriates. A2 mentioned for example that “Renault has got a major experience in intercultural
management since they manage plenty of expatriates all around the world. They really care about
those employees who are asked to leave their native country to work abroad, immersed in foreign
teams. Thus every expatriate can enjoy a kind of integration course that includes language lessons
and intercultural sensitization.” Then he précised that : “ Basically it enables everybody to get aware
of the main cultural differences; even if I think that any ex-expatriate would say that it’s only theory
and that the true difficulties are met in the everyday situations.” During the interview, he feels link
being very satisfied with Renault expatriate management. However concerning the trainings, is point
of view seems quite skeptical and is not fully convinced of the effectiveness of those trainings?
In Vinci, A5 explained that future expatriate “receive a small book with a lot of information inside,
what to do in case of emergency, the security measures according the country they will live in… [she]
know[s] that some companies have training about intercultural management but that's not the case
in Vinci.”
In Decathlon, A1 mentioned that she felt intercultural management in the daily life. She also
mentioned the trainings called “Lean to work with Chinese”. “This training was destined to future
expatriates, but also to employee based in France, but in contact with Chinese offices.” As A2

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Justine GILBERT
mentioned it, according to her, an expatriate can measure the reality being abroad, which seems to
mean that she does not feel the usefulness of the training for expatriates but for employees who stay
in France.
Definition of intercultural management
According the interviewed, the notion of what is intercultural management was not always
explicit to them. For example when we asked A4, it seems that she perfectly knew what it is, but it
was not easy to put words on it. After a few seconds she answered “it is…it is…it is having a flexible
character.” She was not fully satisfied by her answer.
For her, intercultural management is not only coming from the managers. For example Jamaican
working in Jamaica for a French company has to adapt himself as well because in the case of Vinci
“the rules in term of quality and security are not the same as what they have been used to”.
A1 was very comfortable with the concept; she even said that it was a subject she studied in school
during her master degree. For her the word is not especially what people understand, but anybody
who already travelled or met foreigner in their country know that cultures confrontation can be
problematic, which does not mean that everybody is able to handle intercultural linked situation.
Thanks to her knowledge of French culture and Russian culture, A5 narrated that when she was in
mission in Russian, she « managed some situations quite easily, being like a judge between the
project manager and some local employees just because [she] understood that the problem wasn't
coming from the work itself but from the way they explained and understood it.” In this story she
mentioned “that the problem was not coming from the work”, which mean that technical skills and
knowledge of the project manager was not enough to manage the situation. This story also shows
that one problem of intercultural context is the way how people explain and understand a situation,
which change according people, and with more intensity according people coming from different
culture. Basically, the main problem is then communication.
Communication
A1 told us that when « [she] was in China with Decathlon, [they were] a team of 3 French and
3 Chinese, and in team meeting every month, [they] exchanged about the past misunderstanding
linked to their cultures.” She explained that “It really helped a lot in the daily work”.
Communication is always a problem in working environment, however it become even more
problematic in an international context. Interviews allowed us to identify in what way
communication was even more complicated in international context.
Language
Probably because when we imagine the concept of communication, the oral communication
come first in mind, most of the interviewed made some references to languages during their
narration.

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Justine GILBERT
A5 preferred to do the interview in English, however when we asked her if she can speak French she
answered “Of course”, as if it was obvious, that you cannot work in France and within a French
company without being fluent in French. She explained that she “studied 2 years in France, [she has]
learned French”.
With her HR experience, she also indicated that during a recruitment process for a job in an
international context, they really pay attention to the language skills of the candidate: “Which
languages he can speak?” For company this part seems very important. When she was looking for a n
internship, she says that she was lucky, because “they were looking for a French-Russian speaker to
assist the operational Russian division”. In this case we see that language skills were the priority,
even before operational skills.
And we can also add that knowing the language is not also enough. A4 explained that for Jamaicans,
the comprehension of the language with their French accent is not always easy, even if they speak
English.
A2 told us that « [he] had all the conditions gathered – including the will - to learn the Romanian
language. It was a strong wish from [him]self, and [he is] convinced that it is a prerequisite to a good
integration and to a good understanding of the local culture.”
A1 experienced the language barrier when she went to China. She told us that by learning a bit of
Chinese, she realized that the way they communicate was really different from what she knows in
French or in English : “In fact if they do not say “please” or when they yell when they speak, it is not
necessary a lack of politeness. This means that language is not only a way to communicate but also a
way to understand better a culture.
Pre-requisite
According to A4, there is a relation of superiority/inferiority between cultures. She said: “a
Jamaican will accept more easily an order coming from a white person. It could seem shocking what I
say but this is everywhere the same. When I was in Qatar, Indians accept order from anybody, but
French would never give an order to a Qatari, because they feel so much superior”. She added: “I do
believe that in peoples mind, there is still a kind of superiority between cultures. This is due to
History, to the economic development differences between the countries. If an Indian accepts order
from Qatari, this is also because hierarchically, it is often justified. This is due to the nature of their
work.”
We think that this is a very sensitive subject which is not a part of this thesis. However without
speaking of hierarchy, we think that the story allow us to say that pre-requirement exist in
communication, which will be profitable or unprofitable. For example, working in Romania, A2 told
us that “Western Europe in general and France especially have got a reputation of serious and
quality. This represents a big advantage”. Those pre-requisite or cliché can influence communication
as well as business development directly.

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Justine GILBERT
Evolution of personal feeling
Following the interviewed, we discovered a notion of evolution in the perception of
intercultural context confrontation. A5 for example, said that “ it getting easier and easier. I really
understand the culture now, even if I have to say it was not easy at the beginning”. For A1, the
beginning of her experience in China has been hard as well, she said “the beginning has been a bit
hard, and then I learn Chinese […] I had the basics and it helped me a lot in daily life. […] And finally,
week after week, I really started to appreciate my life there.”
Finally from employee’s point of view, main difficulties in intercultural context are around the
communication: the way to understand people, the way to explain something. Speaking the same
language is a start but is not the only point of intercultural management. Intercultural management
is not an innate characteristic and human resources have to learn it, which explain why it is hard at
the beginning.
D. IT
Organization management
For A5, there are similarities between the projects all around the world. She told us:
“Concerning the similarities I would say more or less all the Vinci standards, for example in term of
security management on the worksite. Also in term of project management, it is quite the same for
each project.” She told us before that all project are prototype but anyway there is a common part
on each project, such as mobilisation of the team, project life and demobilisation. She also
mentioned the term of standard that we will analyse later on.
“For example you as a cost controller, when you arrive on site before the beginning of the project
you can have access to the Lauréat file, which is the budget done for the study and it will help you a
lot to create your budget.” The software used for the budget of the study and the one for the project
is not the same. “However the two software communicate each other and you can easily extract
information from Laureat and input it in Pegase. Laureat is the software used by all the studies
engineers and Pegase is used by all the cost controllers. But I think that is quite logical because the
important is that all the cost controllers use the same software, so that when in France they receive
all the files sent by each project from each country they can compile them easily. For the payment
system we have the same problematic. “
We summarized it by a schema as follow:

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Justine GILBERT
Figure 11
In this example, IT is in the center of the organisation. In term of process we see that there is a link
between the budget done during the study and the budget done for the project. The persons in
charge are different, and anyway thanks to the link between the tools they each use, they are able to
get back the information they need.
Figure 12
In one other hand we see that using the same software all around the word allow to adopt a
standardize template of document, which allow a better compilation, and so a better analyse.
Those schemas show that links between software and more generally IT help to face space and time
differences.

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Justine GILBERT
A1 explained us her experience in Cambodia.
“Concerning my internship in Cambodia, it was weird. The company was not well organized. I was
sent there to help the development of representative office in Cambodia and standardize
communication and procedures, accounting procedures, with France for example because
communication between Khmer and French were not smooth, especially because of the distance.
Send a trainee in the field: able to understand the constraints on site and French constraints: it was a
good thing I think.
But I was recruited by the manager of the Asia region, who is based in Vietnam and no one in France
knew about me and I have not had training in France before leaving. It was a shame, I tried to
implement things, I had a lot of responsibility there, I hired myself an assistant for the office and I
managed to make it operational before I left ... It was interesting. I learned a lot of Khmer culture.
But the problem is that things were done in reverse. I was there to standardize existing procedures
but I did not know the practice in France.”
“When it comes to 3 employees based in Paris in the same office, there may be no need for clear
written procedures. But when it comes to ramp up , to be present at the international level, there is
a time when the priority should be the establishment of structures, procedures and guidelines of
international lines before being overtaken the events at the expense of proper functioning of the
activity , for example ... "
A1 develop the notion of standardization and the need of companies to have clear and standardized
procedures to be able to ramp up. For her, there is also the notion of centralization in head-quarter
and then dissemination of good practices. She mentioned also the notion of geographical distance
which creates the need.
Knowledge management
More specifically, in term of knowledge management, we identified a link between IT,
knowledge management and business development.
Sharing his experience of business development in Romania, A2 told us that “The business
development strategy was based on transferring the knowledge and the documentation to Romania
and on relying on the reputation to find new customers.”
On an other hand, A5 explained that “each project have what [they] call the "Dim ad hoc" which is
basically the bible of the project, you can find quotation, expatriate management, budget, letters to
the client and so on…from the beginning to the end. [It] contents plenty of information, basically a
big database.”
Thus we can say that knowledge management serves business development and IT serves knowledge
management. And by analogy identify that IT serves business development.

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MSc Professional Thesis_JustineGilbert_2014

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