Merger & Acquisition: Avoiding the Culture Clash

27thOctober 2016

'When companies merge it provides for a wealth of new opportunities. There's an old age concept at play here, first penned by Aristotle - 'the whole is greater than the sum of its parts' and this rings true in business just as it does in many other aspects of life. However, whilst mergers can bring huge benefits through synergy there are inherent risks - no less the potential for culture clash. It's vital to pursue a post-merger integration (PMI) to deal with the culture question, yet few companies actually do it.

In business, the culture we're talking about here are the organisation's values and its own individual set of behaviours that define what the company is all about. A culture is made up of the company vision, values, norms, systems, symbols, language, assumptions, beliefs, and habits. The combination of all of this paints a picture that brings what is a rather nebulous concept into sharper focus and it is at this stage the problem of culture clash becomes apparent. If the cultures of merging companies are not aligned you're creating somewhat of a recipe for disaster.'

In his new blog, Louis Lo of IQ Change talks about addressing the 'culture clash' when companies merge and the importance of a strong post-merger integration (PMI).

Read the full blog here!

relevant: mergers, business culture, PMI

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