Quantifying Cultural Clash Potential in Mergers and Acquisitions

Research Paper (postgraduate) from the year 2010 in the subject Business economics - Investment and Finance, grade: A+, Queen's University, language: English, abstract: Recent merger waves have shown that the awareness of and appropriate reaction to cultural differences between transaction partners can be the crucial element that decides on their success or failure. Previous research has never made an effort to quantify cultural risks, and in a second step, costs of Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A). This paper aims at developing a model that gives an indication of the conflict potential inherent to the cultural differences between transaction parties. The model shall also disentangle which culture type - national, corporate, professional, individual or deal culture - is most likely to clash, and which cultural elements are the determinants of that hazard. The model can be viewed as an early-stage tool that lays the groundwork for the development of cultural cost estimation instruments for M&A.