In response to the changes in the international business environment, many businesses have resulted to mergers and acquisitions as a way of mitigating against possible poor performance. As is evident in the merger between Applied Materials and Tokyo Electron, mergers come with both advantages and challenges (Steve, 2013). By entering into a merger with Tokyo Electron, a Japanese company, Applied Materials, an American company, was meant to place both companies at a better position in the market by taking advantage of both the American as well as the Japanese experience. Managers at Tokyo Electron had realized that Japanese companies were losing ground in the chip manufacturing market which was originally dominated by Japanese companies. They realized that by partnering with American companies they stood a better chance of making it in the market (Steve, 2013). A merger between international companies results in cross-cultural management as managers from both companies have to cooperate in managing the new company. This was the case in a merger between Applied Materials and Tokyo Electron.

Cross-cultural management has a number of challenges. Cross-cultural management leads to interaction between two different cultures (Kumayama, 1991). Getting managers from two different cultural backgrounds to work together harmoniously to achieve a common objective can be a difficult task. This is because there are some areas where the two cultures conflict.   In the above-mentioned merger managers from the American culture and those from the Japanese culture will have to work together harmoniously despite differences in culture.

Cross-cultural mergers widen not only the business environment of the merged companies, but also increase the exchange of cultures among members of the different cultures. In managing the merged company, the management must realize that their business now extends beyond the boundaries of their country. This demands that the merged companies change how they operate to accommodate members of the new culture. In the above-named merger, both Japanese and American managers will how have to change how they do things so as to accommodate one another.

Customer and stakeholder expectations vary from culture to culture. While American stakeholders highly value profitability, Japanese stakeholders on the other hand place a lot of value on loyalty and honesty (Steve, 2013). This stems from the cultures of the two countries. The managers in this case will have to find a way to satisfy the two groups of stakeholders and at the same time meeting customer expectations. Meeting customer expectations is not easy either considering that the company is dealing with customer from various cultural backgrounds. Whereas the company now has, more business opportunities exploiting them will not be easy considering the varying expectations the customers have.

Culture is always changing. This requires a business to always keep track of the changes in culture. The merged companies will need to keep track of changes in culture in both America and Japan and respond to those changes. This is a difficult task especially if the changes in both markets are in conflict. For instance, if the American market is moving towards hand held devices and the Japanese market is moving towards personal computers, the management will have to make changes in their production to reflect both trends (Mayumi, 2013). Failure to address the changing cultural trends in one market can lead to losing business in that market.

International mergers make it easy for businesses to acquire and share knowledge. Applied materials, for instance, will find it easy to acquire information on the Japanese market is it will rely on the experience of its Japanese counterpart (Steve, 2013). However, management will still be faced with the challenge of utilizing the information gathered to develop products for the market they previously did not serve. The fact that they have a partner from that culture may not help much since it was about to lose the market before the two companies merged. However, the company will face lesser legal restrictions, and this will serve to improve the performance of the company.

Cross – cultural management requires that the management learn the culture of the new market. This includes both the traditional culture as well as the corporate culture. In cases where the cultures are remarkably different, such as the Japanese and the American culture, learning the other culture can be a big challenge (Mayumi, 2013). The management may even be forced to bring in some experienced employees to assist the new ones understand better the new culture. To succeed in the new environment, the management must see to it that the employees understand the languages spoken in that culture as well as the various practices in that culture. Hence, the management has to study the communication style used in the new culture as well as the social behavior taken to be appropriate in that area. They also need to find out the various factors that influence business in the new cultures. These are factors like religion, politics and cultural beliefs. Failure to consider these can lead to failure of the business.

In the case of Applied materials and Tokyo Electron merger, there are various cultural differences between Japan and USA the management will have to deal wit (Mayumi, 2013).. Americans prefer to speak directly with gestures and non-verbal communication playing a key role during communication (Kumayama, 1991).   Japanese, on the other hand, speak indirectly and prefer the use of a middleman when discussing important matters. In Japanese communication, non-verbal signs play a more important role than they do in American communication.

Due to the immigrant nature of the American society, a communicator strives to make himself as clear as possible since he assumes the listener may not share same cultural origin as him. The Japanese, on the other hand, consider themselves a culturally homogenous society hence have a tendency to assume that everyone knows the popular culture and will play by its unwritten rules (Kumayama, 1991). While the Americans use their English language to persuade, the Japanese use theirs to express emotions. It would be important for the newly merged company to take all these cultural factors into account when doing business in the two countries.

To reduce the cultural differences between the two companies, the management has to train its employees on what changes to expect. It must also train them how to handle those changes. Workers must be made to understand that working patterns and processes might have to be changed to accommodate customers from the other market. The management has to come up with flexible working patterns that take into account the culture of the host country. The management ought to take into account the demographic trends in the other country (Kumayama, 1991). Factors like workforce composition, affirmative action, and work-life balance differ from culture to culture. while finding skilled replacements for retiring employees in some countries is easy, it may not be so easy in others. The management has to take such factors into account during decision making.