Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.

Foreign direct investment [FDI] into the United Kingdom (UK) has grown considerably in recent years. US, French, German and Japanese companies have generally accounted for the largest share of this FDI. In addition to greenfield and expansion investment, a major vehicle for inward FDI has been the acquisition of UK companies. The project examined whether nationally distinct approaches to management were introduced, following acquisition, among a sample of 201 UK subsidiaries of French, German, Japanese, US and UK companies. It provided data on the extent of changes and the post-acquisition influence of the new parent, comparing changes between the four foreign nationalities and a UK control group.

Main Topics:

The dataset contains information on organisation structure, control, human resource management, sales and marketing management, communication, research and development/development of products and services, procurement, company philosophy, strategy, and overall changes to the 201 UK subsidiaries that were surveyed.

It was decided to confine the investigation to acquisitions made by US, Japanese, German and French companies. Furthermore, only acquisitions occurring in the period between 1 January 1985 and 31 December 1994 were sampled. This procedure had the advantage, firstly, of including only FDI cases where reasonable recall of the pre-and post-acquisition situations was possible. Secondly, it meant that only acquisitions more than two years old were included, so that changes would have had a chance to be implemented. The addition of the UK as one of the acquirer countries allowed for the possibility of distinguishing between general acquisition effects and those specifically associated with the foreign nationality of acquirers. For further information please see documentation.

Postal survey