Cultural Conflict and Merger Failure: An Experimental Approach

Roberto Weber and Colin Camerer ()

Management Science, 2003, vol. 49, issue 4, 400-415

Abstract: We use laboratory experiments to explore merger failure due to conflicting organizational cultures. We introduce a laboratory paradigm for studying organizational culture that captures several key elements of the phenomenon. In our experiments, we allow subjects in ÜfirmsÝ to develop a culture, and then merge two firms. As expected, performance decreases following the merging of two laboratory firms. In addition, subjects overestimate the performance of the merged firm and attribute the decrease in performance to members of the other firm rather than to situational difficulties created by conflicting culture.

Keywords: Experiments; Organizational Culture; Mergers (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2003
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (166)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inm:ormnsc:v:49:y:2003:i:4:p:400-415

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