Emotional dynamics, knowledge flow, and HQ-subsidiary relationships between Chinese acquirers and their UK subsidiaries

This is the dataset about two Chinese firms (ChinaMachine and ChinaRail, pseudonyms) and their acquired British subsidiaries (MachineSUB and RailSUB, pseudonyms) in the engineering sector. Most of the data was generated by qualitative interviews funded by the British Academy Small Research Grant (Ref: SG142848). This is supplemented by some follow-up email communications, interview notes and transcripts of a focus group discussion. Most of the interviews were taken between 2013 and 2017 with senior managers and engineers in both subsidiary and parent firms as interviewees. Interview topics covered general issues such as company strategies, acquisition motivations and expectation. In addition, in-depth discussion covered the upgrading process and major changes in the subsidiaries, the integration process and HQ-subsidiary relationships.

Most of the interviews were transcribed by two different professional services and they came with different formats. Some of the interviews are transcribed in Chinese without English translation because of lack of budget.

The transcripts were put in chronical order and grouped into the two different acquisitions.

Due to ethical/commercial issues, this dataset cannot be made openly available.