Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0195140966, Hardcover)

There are thousands of mergers every year and some estimates say that two-thirds of them either fail or fall far short of expectations. How can executives keep their merger from becoming a head-on collision? In The Human Side of M&A, Dennis Carey and Dayton Ogden argue that most failed mergers looked good on paper--they made financial and strategic sense--but the highly important human element was neglected or overlooked. In particular, corporate cultures often clash and wreck any chance that the firms will work harmoniously together. The authors, who have worked with many companies in the process of merging, draw on their unique experience to show how to address the human side of a merger, revealing pitfalls to avoid and ways to minimize risk. They describe how to assess the quality of the people to determine who are the best in both firms. They argue that the CEOs need to create a new vision for the combined firm (one that differs from the vision of the original firms). And they stress that it is vitally important to move quickly once the merger is approved so that the firms can hit the ground running on the first official day of operating as a combined company. The book concludes with a rigorous statistical appendix that analyzes some of the most successful mergers of the past ten years, validating the book's underlying theme and conclusions. The numbers of mergers vary from year to year, but the strategy of putting two firms with complementary strategic strengths together will continue into the foreseeable future. This book will help ensure the success of those ventures.