Research the status of the merged company at the time of your reading of this case. What happened in the industry since the merger, and how is the company faring? (Financial report of Alcatel-Lucent : http://investing.businessweek.com)
Cross-cultural misunderstanding and problems took place when American CEO Patricia Russo and French board member Serge Tchuruk were present at Alcatel Lucent. After their departure the organization took appropriate actions by placing French chairman Philippe Camus and Ben Verwaayen in position as the new heads. Philippe Camus is a French who lives in America so he was familiar with both the American and French culture. Ben Verwaayen, being a Dutch has no effect on the cultural as he had a neutral nationality in the company, but he was still closely familiar with cross-cultural issues. Most importantly, both executives were comfortable with working with each other and had no issues on personal level.
Since then Alcatel-Lucent has impressively reported in 2009 for 15.2 billion Euros of revenue. The company is currently operating in more than 130 countries worldwide with both executives still in the same position. Moreover, Alcatel-Lucent was able to become worldwide leader in fixed broadband access market (2008), named ‘Strong Performer’ for Interaction-Centric Customer Service Solutions by Genesys (2008), won IEC InfoVision Award (2008), and ranked No.2 in Global Telecommunications Services Market (2008) (Alcatel-Lucent web-site, 2011

Evaluate the comment that the merger is “a giant transatlantic experiment in multicultural diversity.” What evidence is there that the company has run into cross-culture problems since the merger took place in 2006
The comment that the merger between Alcatel and Lucent is “a giant transatlantic experiment in multicultural diversity” properly describes all the cross-cultural issues involved because the two companies had totally different corporate cultures and individual cultures, both of the companies and the employees working for them. We can use Trompenaars’s Cultural Dimensions to analyze the cultural difference between Alcatel and Lucent. This will provide us evidence of cross-culture problems occurring between Alcatel and Lucent.
Universalism, “let’s get down to business” versus Particularism, “let’s get to know each other before we talk about business”. The US culture is universalism, people are strict to procedure and rules, whereas French culture is particularistic, and thus situations are looked at within its own context.
Communitarianism versus Individualism, identifies which one is more important in a society a community or an individual. US culture encourages individual freedom and responsibility whereas French culture has been traditionally communitarianism, which encourages individuals to work for consensus in the interest of the group.
Neutral versus emotional cultural dimension. The US and France greatly differ from each other. The US culture is considered to be highly neutral, while French people tend to display their emotional side, words are not enough.
Specific versus diffuse dimension. US have a highly specific culture, people enjoy their privacy, and a private life of individuals has little to do with their professional lives. In France, on the other hand, people are concerned with ‘keeping their face’, trying to display positive image in every aspect of their lives. The may cause conflicts if the French inside Alcatel-Lucent tries to get into personal lives of their American coworkers.
Achievement versus ascription cultural. In the US people are more achievement oriented where status and recognition is given to a person due to their achievements. France has a more ascription oriented culture where status is based on seniority, formal position, experience and social status.
Sequential-time orientated versus synchronous time orientated. The US is a sequential-time orientated, people tend to do one activity at a time, they are strict with appointments and prefer to follow plans that have already been laid out. French tend to do more than one activity at a time, appointments are approximate and can change in short notices. The importance of cancelling a meeting or attending one is based on the relationship between those attending. If the person who they do not like needs to have a meeting with them, they may ignore the meeting and might not attend it. Moreover, the French sees the past, present and future equally as important. When doing business they emphasize on the history and tradition of the future, find out internal relationship, and agree to meetings in principle but fix no deadlines for completion. Whereas in the US, doing business is a future-oriented, they emphasize on opportunities and limitless scope that any agreement can have, and they are aware of the core competence or continuity that the other party intends to carry with it into the future.
Inner-direct versus outer-direct. Americans are inner direct and believes in controlling their own environment or outcomes based on their actions. French are sometimes in the middle, they believe that sometimes they have to go with the flow of the environment and let things take their own course. However, in terms of human-time relationships and human-nature cultural dimensions there are no stark differences in US and French culture, and these matters are unlikely to become basis for cultural misunderstandings at Alcatel-Lucent.