Transatlantic culture-carriers : A qualitative study on Swedish companies' organisational culture change in the United States

All countries have their own national culture, with their own norms, beliefs, attitudes, and values. Every organisation in the world also has their own organisational culture, just like any other social group. Because of the increased globalization throughout the world, more companies are becoming multinational corporations. This means that they go through a market entry process when they enter a foreign market. This can lead to their already established organisational culture being affected by the national culture in the foreign country. The effect of national culture on organisations is a well-researched area. However, the research on how the organisational culture is affected by national culture as an organisation goes through international market entry leaves much to be discovered. The purpose of this thesis was to investigate how, and if the organisational culture of Swedish organisations is affected by national culture when they establish themselves on the United States market. It was also investigated how Hofstede’s five dimensions of culture can aid in the explanation of the potential organisational culture change, and if the index scores of the five dimensions for Sweden and the United States correspond to the differences later indicated by our research. The effect of leadership and market entry strategy on the organisational culture was also investigated. The qualitative data collection in this thesis comes from semi-structured interviews with companies who help Swedish companies in their market entry process, managers of Swedish companies who have established themselves on the United States market, and one human resource manager within a Swedish company which has moved to the United States. This data lays the basis for the results of this study, and we identify themes relevant to the purpose and research question of this study. The conclusion of this thesis shows that the organisational culture of all the companies we have interviewed has been influenced by national culture to some extent. The factors which are identified to have had the largest impact on the organisational culture of these companies are market entry strategy, leadership, and the newly found themes; culture-carriers and laws and legislation. It is also concluded how Hofstede’s five cultural dimensions within organisational culture are affected by the national culture. In the conclusion of this thesis, the importance of the cultural knowledge and awareness of the factors which influence organisational culture possessed by managers is emphasised. Practical and theoretical implications are also provided both for organisations and future research.