wants the new employees to accept the organization’s core cultural values. Otherwise,
these employees are unlikely to fit in or be accepted. But at the same time, manage-
ment wants to openly acknowledge and demonstrate support for the differences that these
employees bring to the workplace.
Strong cultures put considerable pressure on employees to conform. They limit the
range of values and styles that are acceptable. It is no coincidence that employees at
Disney theme parks appear to be almost universally attractive, clean, and wholesome
looking, with bright smiles. That’s the image the Walt Disney Company seeks. It selects
employees who will maintain that image. Once the theme-park employees are on the job,
a strong culture—supported by formal rules and regulations—ensures that they will
act in a relatively uniform and predictable way.
A strong culture that ignores prejudice can even undermine formal corporate diver-
sity policies. A widely publicized example is the Texaco case in the United States, which
senior managers made disparaging remarks about minorities and, as a result of legal
action on behalf of 1400 employees, paid a settlement of $246 million.^39 Organizations
seek out and hire diverse individuals because of the new strengths they bring to the
workplace. Yet these diverse behaviours and strengths are likely to diminish in strong cul-
tures as people try to fit in. Strong cultures, therefore, can be liabilities when they effec-
tively eliminate the unique strengths that people of different backgrounds bring to the
organization. Moreover, strong cultures can also be liabilities when they support insti-
tutional bias or become insensitive to people who are different.
Culture as a Barrier to Mergers and Acquisitions
Historically, the key factors that management looked at in making merger or acquisition
decisions were related to financial advantages or product synergy. In recent years, cultural
compatibility has become the primary concern.^40 While a favourable financial state-
ment or product line may be the initial attraction of an acquisition candidate, whether
the acquisition actually works seems to have more to do with how well the two organ-
izations’ cultures match up.
A number of mergers fail within the first several years, and the primary cause is often con-
flicting organizational cultures.^41 Even if mergers do not fail, the impact on employees
can be devastating. For instance, employees from Andersen Canada merged with Toronto-
based Deloitte & Touche LLP Canada in June 2002, after they were basically forced out of
work with little notice as the Enron scandal unfolded. Colin Taylor, CEO and managing part-
ner of Deloitte in Canada, noted that “given the circumstances, you have a lot of employ-
ees worried, anxious, traumatized even. They are in shock that a professional service firm
of this size would have this happen to them so quickly.”^42 Andersen’s employees were not
in a very good bargaining position when accepted into Deloitte. Unlike mergers where
the two merging organizations fight over the name of the new company, and who gets
what titles, Andersen’s employees were concerned about having any jobs at all. This may
affect how comfortable Andersen employees feel with the Deloitte culture as time passes.
Strategies for Merging Cultures
Organizations can use several strategies when considering how to merge the cultures of
two organizations:^43
- Assimilation.The entire new organization is determined to take on the culture
of one of the merging organizations. This strategy works best when one of the
organizations has a relatively weak culture. However, if a culture is simply
imposed on an organization, it rarely works. - Separation.The organizations remain separate, and keep their individual cul-
tures. This strategy works best when the organizations have little overlap in
the industries in which they operate.
Chapter 10 Organizational Culture and Change 345The Walt Disney Company
http://disney.go.com1996 Texaco Discrimination
Case
http://www.courttv.com/archive/legaldocs/
business/texaco/Deloitte
http://www.deloitte.com