Simple Past & Present Perfect (Articles)

(Simple Past)

Apple's Management Team: Before & After Steve Jobs Left

One popular story of late regarding Cook and Apple is that Apple is suffering from brain drain , as employees seek fresh opportunities at Google, LinkedIn and other hot companies now that Apple's stock has fallen from the lofty $700 mark about a year ago to the more modest $500 or so level. Some of this discussion has been prompted by changes at the higher echelons of Apple, namely the management team, since Cook took over.

To sum up the management changes: Jobs stepped down as CEO in August of 2011 and died in October; Cook moved up from COO to CEO; SVP of Mac Hardware Engineering Bob Mansfield retired in June 2012, returned a short while later, the stepped down earlier this summer to focus on special project ; Dan Riccio joined top management ranks overseeing hardware last year; Ron Johnson, head of retail, announced he was leaving Apple in June 2011 and officially left shortly after Jobs' death to head up J.C. Penney;  John Browett replaced Johnson, but was ousted in April 2012, with Cook at least temporarly taking over the retail operations; Scott Forstall, SVP for iOS, also was ousted in 2012; Eddy Cue gained new responsibilities in the wake of the Forstall departure and became part of the top management team, and has even been rumored to be a possible Cook successor if things go south for him;  legendary designer Jonathan Ive was also given increased design responsibilities; and Craig Federighi joined the executive team overseeing software engineering after Forstall left, and played a starring role in Apple's iOS 7 announcement in June.

Here's a look at what that team looks like now vs. on Aug. 16, 2011, shortly before Jobs stepped down and Cook took over as CEO.

(Present Perfect)

Integration Management of Western Acquisitions in Japan

Historically, Japan has received significantly less cross-border foreign direct investment (FDI) than other developed countries. However, in recent years, intensified globalization and deregulation has led to a sharp increase in cross-border M&A transactions in Japan. Press, media, consultants and Japanese managers seem extremely optimistic that the flow of cross-border M&A will continue to expand. During this process, foreign companies are expected to help restructure distressed companies By doing so, foreign companies might play a role in the currently discussed process of converging management practices.

Despite general enthusiasm, the performance of companies following M&A transactions has been rather disappointing. In a study of 1,700 companies in the USA, Europe and Japan, quote a failure rate of 70 per cent. Among the larger cross-border M&A in Japan, a few multinational companies are already struggling with their acquisitions. In this study, we analyze one of these unsuccessful acquisitions, namely Daimler Chrysler-Mitsubishi, and compare it with the successful Renault-Nissan acquisition. In both cases a Western automobile company, French and German-American respectively, acquired a controlling stake in a distressed Japanese automobile company.

Despite several similar starting conditions, these two acquisitions developed widely divergent outcomes that suggest differences in post-acquisition integration processes. Other authors familiar with the Renault-Nissan case have also argued that success lies more in post-acquisition management than in strategic, legal or financial issues. Therefore, this study focuses on analyzing the post-acquisition integration management process.

Post-acquisition integration processes have often been described as the decisive factor in M&A success Following, we divided the post-acquisition integration process into organizational integration (task integration) and human integration (employee resistance). Whereas organizational integration deals with the operational integration of the firms, human integration analyzes the (mostly negative) reactions of employees towards M&A integration, and methods of managing these reactions.

The majority of previous studies have tried to single out and analyze only one factor within one of these two categories. As a result, findings have been mixed and sometimes even contradictory. Few studies have tried to integrate various aspects to reach a better understanding of the M&A process made a first attempt at a more comprehensive analysis by investigating the role of organizational and human integration in acquisitions. However, their theory was based on only three successful acquisition cases, of Swedish companies in Europe and America.

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