The Impact of Cultural Differences on the Daimler Chrysler Merger

Research Paper (undergraduate) from the year 2010 in the subject Organisation and administration - Miscellaneous, grade: 1,7, Northumbria University, language: English, abstract: The Merger of DaimlerChrysler in 1998 is regarded to be the biggest merger in the automotive industry. In academic literature there is consensus about the fact that cultural issues had a major impact on the merger's failure. Bearing in mind the importance of organisational culture on the success of M&A, this study aims to provide an in-depth analysis of the famous DaimlerChrysler merger. The researcher will reveal the organisations' cultural issues which arose during and after the merger and she will explain the impact of these issues on different organisational levels. The analysis will be conducted with the help of the theoretical frameworks of Schein (1984) and Hofstede (2001). Findings show that cultural differences have had an impact throughout all organisational levels. Due to this finding it is concluded that the merger was about to fail from the beginning on.