Западные дезинвестиции из России: специфика культуры компаний, не уходящих из страны

Foreign Di estment ( FD ) b Multinational Corporations based in the West ( Western MNCs ) of their in estments in Russia has increased in the past fe ears. Foreign di estment has historically received less attention than inbound mergers and acquisitions ( M&A ) and foreign direct in estment ( FDI ), despite also being of critical strategic importance to most Western MNCs. Western MNCs have historically engaged in FDI in Russian for a number of reasons, as reported in the literature. Most research suggests that the loss of competitive advantage has been a primary motivator, while cultural drivers have received more limited attention (Groysberg et al, 2018). This paper examines one critical cultural factor driving FDI by Western MNCs in the context of several specific cases. In particular, this analysis is focused on the perceived differences between dominant corporate culture of the typical Western MNC and their Russia-based wholly-owned subsidiaries, as well as more broadly the differences between the national culture of the parent organization of the Western MNC and the Russian market. In this regard, the analysis attempts to identify certain critical success factors related to this important cultural phenomenon. In order to uncover some insights in this area, this research looks at several cases of two separate types. The two separate types of cases examined are companies which have left Russia and companies which have remained in Russia.
It is important to first recognize what foreign divestment is and what causes it. Regarding the first point, divestment is one of many terms used to describe the same thing: the sale or elimination by other means of certain company assets. In this article we describe a more specific form of divestment. One in which a company based abroad sheds its assets in a foreign country (in this case Russia.) Other terms that have been used and can be used to describe this same phenomenon are divestiture (Song, 2014), withdrawal, winding down of operations, shut down, disinvestment, de-internationalization, divestiture (Shapiro, 2019) and market exit. Foreign divestment is in essence a downsizing in company assets and might take the form of the shutdown of a department, or entire company in a foreign market. Broadly there are three different forms that divestment can take. First, is a closure or liquidation. This is when a business just decides to close its operations and business. Second, is a reduction in operations through a reduction in investment. This is often referred to as disinvestment or starvation. Finally,
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divestiture refers to the sale of a subsidiary to another company or government. (Steenhuis and Bruijin, 2009)
Foreign divestment can occur for a number of reasons. Most literature focuses on specific factors that could result in a bad outcome or exert divestment pressure in some other way. There remains no comprehensive theory on what causes firms to divest. Common explanations described by Benito and Welch (1997) are disappointing performance, inadequate analysis prior to investment, poor market conditions, insufficient resources, various external pressures, poor management, or a revision in company strategy that leads a subsidiary to become redundant. Ovin (2021) identified that poor media coverage of inbound international M&A may contribute to negative outcomes. The research also found that developed economies generally had more favorable media coverage of inbound international M&A when compared to developing economies. It is safe to extrapolate that this attitude to foreign M&A activity is extendable to other forms of foreign business activity.
The research goals of this article were exploratory and there were no intentions of proving any sort of causation between a particular type of culture and success in Russia. The research seeks to answer several questions. Namely, what sort of organizational culture do Western MNCs in Russia have? That is, if they do have some sort of common culture at all. Additionally, does the country from which an MNC seem to exert any affect the Russian subsidiaries corporate culture? The final research goal was to understand what factors played into the organizational culture of the companies in Russia. This is related to the previous question: Does it appear that the country of origin of the MNC affects the organizational culture much or does the domestic workforce of the company overshadow some of these larger values.