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Winning Behaviours in East and West

Recontextualizing a Strategic Concept within a Global Organization

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Global Collaboration: Intercultural Experiences and Learning

Abstract

This chapter investigates how the Carlsberg Group,1 following a series of international mergers and acquisitions in 2008, launched a strategic concept labelled Winning Behaviours in all markets in which the multinational company operates. From a company perspective, the strategy aims to guide how business is done in order to achieve better global alignment, whilst at the same time allowing local brands and initiatives to flourish. We describe how the corporate communications and human resource departments at headquarters facilitate this strategic process, and also look at how these Winning Behaviours have been recontextualized and given sense by local and expatriate managers in selected subsidiaries in Asia. In Carlsberg Malaysia, for example, the Winning Behaviours are a very visible part of the company’s visual identity. The photograph above shows vignettes posted in the subsidiary to illustrate the five behaviours.

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© 2012 Martine Cardel Gertsen and Anne-Marie Søderberg

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Gertsen, M.C., Søderberg, AM. (2012). Winning Behaviours in East and West. In: Gertsen, M.C., Søderberg, AM., Zølner, M. (eds) Global Collaboration: Intercultural Experiences and Learning. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137026064_10

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