In a survey of 179 newly merged organizations, Right Management found that only 30 percent of respondents feel their companies have successfully integrated cultures following the merger. For the 70 percent that haven't done such a great job, the fallout can be mettlesome. Nothing subverts the promise of a strategic merger like plummeting morale, high turnover and an inability to attract top executives. The idea that culture is important shouldn't be news to any executive. Because business is still grounded in numbers that can be quantified and strategies that translate nicely into soundbites.
Culture is ambiguous, amorphous, often messy.
And the way we describe organizational culture doesn't get to the heart of the matter. One company is team-oriented. How those descriptions translate into employee conduct and morale remains a mystery to most people. But it's time for executives to evaluate corporate culture at the same time they take a fine-toothed comb to the balance sheet. Mark D. Arian, leader of the mergers and acquisition practice at Hewitt Associates LLC in Bridgewater, N.J., notes that certain cultural data points can indeed be evaluated with the exactitude of a hard science.