Behind the Scenes

Companies from emerging economies such as China and India are increasingly buying renowned manufacturing companies in the Global North. For the management of the companies acquired, the investors from emerging countries are new and unknown players. This chapter shows how managers of German firms construe takeovers by Chinese and Indian investors. On the surface, German managers appear to have positive shared visions of the new investors. A structural hermeneutics perspective, however, highlights powerful patterns of interpretation concerning rational organisation and legitimate rule, implying that German managers in fact distance themselves from the new owners in the early post-merger stage.