Acculturation in Mergers and Acquisitions

Cultural clashes in a “merger of equals”: The case of high‐tech start‐ups

“…These studies tend to treat culture as a set of monolithic attributes, however, implying that an organization's members share durable meanings that are embedded in the organizational culture and resist change when disrupted (e.g., Harrison & Carroll, 2006;Ranft, 2006;Ranft & Lord, 2002). This literature also tends to view culture during postmerger integration as an outcome of a premeditated integration approach (e.g., Bower, 2004;Haspeslagh & Jemison, 1991;Morosini & Singh, 1994;Nahavandi & Malekzadeh, 1988;Schweiger, 2002). Although the extant literature on culture clashes is overly deterministic, the constructionist approach posits that the impact of culture on postmerger integration is best explained through the discursive and sensemaking traditions of cultural theory (e.g., Gertsen, Soderberg, & Torp, 1998;Hellgren et al, 2002;Riad, 2005;Soderberg & Holden, 2002;Vaara, 2000Vaara, , 2002Vaara, , 2003.…”

“…This was likely due to explicitly separating parts of the organizations during the merger (see Nahavandi & Malekzadeh, 1988) and the fragmentation that occurred during the process of integration. Immediately following the merger, BroadBand maintained a separation between Intercom products and Extercom products.…”

“…Larsson & Lubatkin, 2001;Nahavandi & Malekzadeh, 1988). During premerger negotiation talks, a consultant who coordinated the process conducted a cultural survey in both firms and found cultural synergies.…”

Managing Post-Acquisition Cultural Change: A case Study of Union Bank Limited (Now Standard Chartered Bank Pakistan Limited)

“…Regardless of these differences, there are many similarities between them which can be the reason that literature mentions the two together. This has its own significance that the acquired firms by large, accepts the cultural practices of the acquirer (Hambrick and Cannella, 1993;Nahavandi and Malekzadeh, 1988), however the acquiring managers should review that why people in acquired companies do accept or reject at first sight, the cultural changes. Few studies discovered that the members of the acquired firms are seldom heard (Gertsen and Søderberg, 2000;Vaara, 2000).…”

“…The acquired company"s culture and the acquirers cultural can be evaluated positively or can be totally rejected (Nahavandi and Malekzadeh, 1988 Despite the importance of mega-trends of mergers & acquisitions all over the world, relatively little research on mergers and acquisitions has appeared in the literature. Many researchers have attempted to discover evidence about a part of the whole acquisitions process.…”