Being awkward: creating conscious culture change

The purpose of this paper is to examine why culture is the cause of such widespread failure in mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and explore ways to improve their success rate.

Review of some prominent “failed” mergers for evidence of the influence of cultural factors.

It was found that M&A tended to be more successful where cultural factors were made a priority early in the process and where transparent and two-sided dialogue about culture took place up and down both organizations.

Although the impact of culture in M&A is a topic that has been covered before, this review identifies some new approaches to improving M&A success rates.