Companies have distinctive histories, folk lores ,and personalities, as well as products, markets, and ways of running the business. Typically, people are proud of their company cultures or, at minimum, have learned how to operate effectively within them. A combination brings together companies with different cultures. What people notice first are differences between the two company cultures and what makes their own unique.
Think, for example, of traveling abroad. What one notices is how a foreign land is different from one’s homeland. The same is true of a combination: people notice how their own company is different from a partner’s and begin to pay attention to what makes their company unique. Indeed, even when ncultures may not be especially distinctive, employees tend to see them that way (Martin, Feldman, Hatch, & Sitkin, 1983).