Discussion #1: Culture and Leadership  

Discussion #1: Culture and Leadership  

Strategies involving mergers and acquisitions are particularly vulnerable to cultural problems.  Mergers between two organizations often are easier to accomplish on paper than in reality.  Reality may reveal that the cultures of the organization fail to mesh as easily as corporate assets.

Research the history of the Daimler-Chrysler merger on the Internet.  Learn as much as you can about each original company’s organizational culture.  In addition, there are numerous other mergers within the same industry that have occurred over the last 10 years.  In fact the automobile industry is an industry of recent consolidation.  It might add to your understanding of things if you add some research about the industry and the mergers within the industry.  There are only about 12 to 15 global automobile car manufacturers in the world.

What problems have the companies experienced in combining their cultures?

Have these problems affected their execution of strategy?

What has been done to overcome these challenges?

What role do ethics play in the culture and leadership of an organization?

Why is it so difficult to change the culture of an organization?

Is it worth the effort? Why or Why not?

Give some actual example(s) from your work experience in organizations.  Be sure to cite your research references in APA format.

After reviewing your classmate’s postings, respond based on the following:

Was their posting about clearly supported?  Why or why not?  If so, what did you particularly find interesting in their posting?  If not, what would you add to enhance their posting?

Your posts to your classmates might consist of:  Did you find something interesting that your classmate said that you didn’t think about?  Did you have any follow up questions to your classmate’s postings?

To submit your post to the Discussion select “Start a New Thread“, and type or paste your posting to the question. After reading your peers post, select “Reply to Thread“.

Please note: This Discussion and all the graded discussions in this course are “Must Post First”: After you have made your first post – you then get the benefit of seeing what your fellow students answered while going through the same discussion exercise. Then you can provide feedback comments.

You must start a thread before you can read and reply to other threads