Does cultural assimilation affect organizational decision-making on quality-related incidents? — A company's post-M&A experience

Differences in organizational culture have been suggested as the major reason for the failure of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) to achieve synergies. We analyze an M&A case, focusing on the assimilation of organizational culture particularly with regard to quality. The purpose is to explore the consequences that internal inconsistencies in quality culture exert on quality performance, and to illustrate whether the assimilation of quality culture relates to organizational decision-making as corporate integration proceeds after a merger. We collect a unique data set that is not generally available, including internal quality data, customers' quality ratings, and records of quality-related incident resolution. A total of 301 incidents occurring during five years after a merger are analyzed by measuring the time taken to address the incidents and conducting a questionnaire survey followed by interviews. Further, a modeling study of the cultural assimilation process is conducted to establish a relationship between our theory and empirical findings. The results reveal that the efficiency of organizational decision-making is associated with the degree of cultural assimilation and how deeply into the layers of quality culture the assimilation extends. The findings suggest pragmatic implications as well as effective strategies managers could adopt for M&As and stimulate further research on corporate consolidations.