Come together? The organizational dynamics of post-merger cultural integration

Cultural integration of two organizations following an acquisition depends on the compatibility of the contents of their respective cultures as well as the demographic flows of persons into and out of the new entity. Conducting simulations using an established formal demographic model of the enculturation process, we find that negative growth promotes cultural integration while positive growth impedes it, and that cultural integration proceeds more rapidly when the acquiring firm is large relative to the acquired firm. We also find that cultural recovery for merged firms experiencing either positive or negative growth is slower than for firms with zero growth. 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.