Proceedings of the 3rd European Conference on Intellectual Capital

Sorin Anagnoste and Gabriela Dumitru
However, Bere-Mures acquisition by Heineken proved to be <strong>the</strong> right decision at <strong>the</strong> right time. A
follow-up <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> transactions shows a significant improvement in both companies’ activities after <strong>the</strong>
merger.
One limitation <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> study is <strong>the</strong> nature <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> sample. All <strong>the</strong> subjects came from brewery sector. It is
Heineken Romania with its specialties regarding its history, its culture, philosophy, managerial
practices and values. It is a family owned business and it would be interested comparing with o<strong>the</strong>r
competitors like AB Inbev, SAB Miller, etc.
We obtained and interpreted results using questions, which define transformational leadership, but it
will be interesting to interpret <strong>the</strong> answers <strong>of</strong> questionnaires related to o<strong>the</strong>r styles <strong>of</strong> leadership or to
do a 360-degree transformational leadership interpretation.
Findings
During <strong>the</strong> negotiation process <strong>the</strong> Heineken team was very humble and had an attitude <strong>of</strong> selfdeterminacy
and strong confidence, which was very important when <strong>the</strong> shareholders <strong>of</strong> Bere-
Mures took <strong>the</strong> decision; this is also known as tacit knowledge (Orzea, Agoston;2009) which was
represented by having worked in that culture and using <strong>the</strong> using tacit knowledge is very hard for
outsiders to imitate it, and <strong>the</strong>refore, to be transferred;
Due to <strong>the</strong> fact that <strong>the</strong> negotiation team was from <strong>the</strong> same region with <strong>the</strong> shareholders seems
to be an advantage;
We believe that <strong>the</strong> Ursus team made its presentations in English, its negotiations in English and
<strong>the</strong> documentation presented to shareholders in English. These issues, whilst not influencing in
<strong>the</strong> cash value <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong>ir <strong>of</strong>fer, seems to have been significant in <strong>the</strong> decision which <strong>of</strong>fer to accept;
We think that <strong>the</strong> lost was pr<strong>of</strong>ound for Ursus, because on <strong>the</strong> medium and long term producing
beer in a big city and respecting environment legislation is not <strong>the</strong> best thing you can do; when we
are writing this article in <strong>the</strong> Financial newspaper appeared <strong>the</strong> news that Ursus is closing <strong>the</strong>
brewery from Cluj;
The leadership (top management) <strong>of</strong> Heineken is changing every 3-4 years from country to
country and this is an example <strong>of</strong> reaching that maturity, development and ability to lead for every
management member, which was translated in <strong>the</strong> end in a perfect collaboration to achieve <strong>the</strong>
goal: acquiring Bere-Mures (Kelloway and Barling, J. 2009);
The CEO <strong>of</strong> Heineken at that time delegated <strong>the</strong> negotiation process to people from that region
compared to Ursus who sent <strong>the</strong> experts from London. By doing this <strong>the</strong> CEO proved an example
<strong>of</strong> Level 5 leadership by setting up his successors for even greater success in <strong>the</strong> next
generation; a Level 5 leaders embody a mix between personal humility and pr<strong>of</strong>essional will. The
egos <strong>of</strong> most CEOs contributed to demise or mediocrity;
It is said that we work for our self interest, but we do not work for our self interest all <strong>the</strong> time
because emotions change our way <strong>of</strong> thinking (Anagnoste et al, 2009);
Unexpected findings
All Heineken’s CEOs came from inside;
In <strong>the</strong> discussion with <strong>the</strong> negotiation team we observed that <strong>the</strong> good luck was an attribute <strong>of</strong>ten
presented for <strong>the</strong> success, ra<strong>the</strong>r than personal greatness;
We were not looking for transformational leaders in our research, but <strong>the</strong> data ga<strong>the</strong>ring was
convincing. It was an empirical, not an ideological, finding;
People formed in Heineken Romania became leaders in o<strong>the</strong>r industries, which results that
leaders create leaders;
8. Appendix 1
Factor analysis results for Transformational Analysis
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