Cultural conflict and merger failure: An experimental approach

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Weber, RA; Camerer, CF
• 署名单位: Carnegie Mellon University; California Institute of Technology
• 刊物名称: MANAGEMENT SCIENCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0025-1909
• DOI: 10.1287/mnsc.49.4.400.14430
• 发表日期: 2003
• 页码: 400-415
• 关键词: Experiments; ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE; mergers

摘要

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 firms 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.