From Politics of Ethnicity to Politics of Cultures: When Kool Far East Group Took over Shiranai International in Hong Kong

Abstract

This chapter anthropologically investigates the culture of politics in a securities house in Hong Kong named Shiranai International. Originally a subsidiary of Shiranai Japan—a famous Japanese securities house—Shiranai International was taken over in the late 1990s by a Taiwanese conglomerate called the Kool Far East Group and renamed as Kool Far East-Shiranai International. This anthropological investigation examines how the culture of politics within the company changed when Shiranai International was taken over by the Kool Far East Group. I shall show that the culture of politics in Shiranai International changed from the politics of ethnicity to the politics of culture after the company was taken. In conclusion, I shall spell out the implications of the anthropological discovery made in this chapter to the study of mergers and acquisitions in particular and the role of culture or ethnicity in explaining cross-cultural management in general.