The Purchase of MBNA by the Bank of America

The modern business culture must, by necessity, be fluid if it is to succeed globally. There is interaction between employees, between stakeholders, and between global environments. In fact, this environment is formed through multiple interactions between the strengths, weaknesses and opportunities presented through the organization's unique culture. Since truly the one constant in business is change, it is how we adapt to such changes; as individuals and part of groups, that helps manifest behaviors as he culture evolves. Indeed, many believe that one of the templates that make up this fluidity is the concept, even more popular in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, of mergers and acquisitions (Horibe, 2001).

The case of Karen Leary illustrates the implications cultural conflict can have on business organizations and office culture. A common mistake managers make is undermining the power of cultural constraints at the organizational level. After six years as a financial consultant at Merrill Lynch, Karen Leary was promoted to general manager at the Elmville branch in Chicago. Leary wanted to achieve success at the branch office by building high-producing, successful group of professionals who work together to provide clients with complete service in meeting long-term financial goals.

Every organization has values and beliefs that define what they do and how they do things in the organization. These values have significant influence on how the employees behaves and the general performance of the organization – it is these set of values and beliefs, rooted deep in the company’s organizational structure that depict the “dos”, “don’t” and the “hows”, of the organization and these unequivocally represents the culture of the organization. This concept became popular in the 1980s when Peters and Waterman in their book: “In search of Excellence” presented the profound argument that, the success of any organization is inextricable linked to the quality of its culture. (Carpenter, M., Taylor, B., Erdogan, B. 2009 p183). The purpose of this paper is an attempt to analyse the impact diverse cultures played in the success of the Lincoln Electric Company.

McCoy’s Building Supply Centers and Chick-fil-A are two 70 years old, successful companies withstanding the test of time. They continue to sustain growth and longevity through economic turbulence, and remain competitive with new and upcoming companies. What is the secret to their success one might wonder? As we examine each company, we begin to recognize the existence of a strong organizational culture. The organizational culture of a company is the anchoring core values, which permeates throughout the company and its employees (Schermerhorn, Osborn & Uhl-Bien, 2012, pp. 9).

The second major barrier to a successful merger between the two companies is a lack of corporate cohesion. The corporate cultures of both companies are very distinct. Royal biscuit is a new corporation that grew rapidly under the entrepreneurial expertise of one man, while Edeling is a mature family-owned business. The companies differ historically, politically and foundationally. Members of both corporations are expressing resistance towards the merger. Royal biscuit employees feel threatened by the merger and are engaging in anti-German antics; some workers don’t want to be loose their job to an Edeling worker or, in other words, to “some sausage-eater” (Reimus, B., 2004, p. 3). Edeling employees, instead, feel that Royal Biscuit employees don’t respect their corporate history. Therefore, it is imperative that Brighton and Wallach come to a cultural compromise in order to collaborate on a leadership plan and create competencies between employees within both of the

Corporate culture influences everyday employee actions – it’s how they interact with customers, each other, and make decisions. If the company culture does not align with the mission statement, it can create an identity crisis of sorts.

A discussion and analysis of the organizational behavior similarities and differences between American telecommunications giants Verizon Communications, Inc. and AT&T, Inc. requires a system of uniform elements in order to offset the differences. Both these companies have evolved through mergers and acquisitions as well as both have experienced major reorganizations. Both the companies have product offerings which are similar in the areas of wireless and wireline telephone service. Focusing on motivation, communication, power bases, and culture offers insight into the complexities of organizational behavior within Verizon and AT&T, and demonstrates the resulting differences in culture despite the common industry and the similarities in structural design.

Levitt (2014) defines culture as the coherent, learned, shared views of a group of people and about life’s concerns that ranks what is important, furnishes attitudes about what things are appropriate, and dictates behavior. Macy’s corporate culture possesses a diverse leadership team to target their diverse customers and locations. Diversity, based on experiences and passion, gives the Macy’s leadership team new perspectives to promote successful business. Levitt (2014) suggests organizational diversity can be considered as a mixture of people with different group identities working in the same social system. A multi-cultural team of Americans, Italians, Germans and Swiss would adapt well in the rich bouquet of culture in Zurich, Switzerland. As a new team leader, the biggest concern would be establishing integrations between the different cultures working together at Macys.

Walmart’s organizational structure determines the company’s business activities. Its organizational structure also enforces limits on how the business discourses its problems. In relation, Walmart’s organizational culture decides the way people react to challenges in the workplace. The elasticity of the human resources of the company partly depends on the mindset maintained through the organizational culture of the Wal-Mart. Nonetheless, the long history of Walmart in progressing successfully and continually growing internationally proves that the firm’s organizational structure and organizational culture have been very positive in bringing competitive advantage and achievement. Such organizational structure interacts with the organizational culture to maintain the significant competitive advantage of Walmart.

Quicken Loans has been successful in creating a corporate culture that is “an exceptional and rewarding place to work”. (Salinger, 2007) In the case of “Fun plus hard work equals success for Quicken Loans” the corporate culture is investigated. The study highlights the fact that the “corporate culture mixes causal with high energy”. (Gallagher & Reindl 2013) Quicken employees either “adapt to this high-energy culture or work can seem a high-pressure chamber where leaders extol workers to sell, sell, sell”. (Gallagher & Reindl 2013) This analysis will take into consideration case studies, theses, and interviews to dissect and apply cultural theory to the corporate environment at the Detroit office of Quicken.

In the case of Andersen, it almost seems as if the changes in the “soft” elements of corporate culture were either directly related to or a side effect of change in the “hard” aspects of the corporate culture.

This report takes a look at the Fortune 1000 company Wells Fargo in respect to organizational culture. Every organization is impacted by the cultural environment within the organization as well as in a specific industry which can impact the efficiency and effectiveness of the organization.

Before this chapter I thought organization’s culture was only internal and outside factors only affect the brand and sales of the company. But I have now learned a lot more about the

Not only is a strong corporate culture good for business by increasing customer satisfaction, it also can help to decrease turnover and save on human resources expenditures. Internal integration should start the minute a new employee enters a company. Training of new employees should include some way of helping them to understand the company's culture. The new hire training program currently in use at Wal-Mart stores includes videos and other information about the founding of the company as well as other general and specific information about the company's culture as well as expectations related to this culture. This is important because a company's culture is not always easily apparent to newcomers and this is what keeps Wal-mart's culture strong (Berg, 2001).

Some businesses in America transfer into bi-cultured after starting out as monoculture. This typically happens when one company buys out the other or they join each other and sub-merge. Every now and then this happens globally. Companies face changes when a merger takes place such as how the business will operate, wages, and or if there will be interference from the government. Once the merger has begun the rules are changed to better serve the company whether people are with it or against it. Company success stories are sent over to a list which is created called the Globe Project list. This list gives pointers and advice for globalized managers to practice based on several key items and characteristics required during a successful merger. Daft states, “Some of the characteristics are assertiveness, performance, and human orientation” (Daft, 2013 ).