How mergers go wrong, DaimlerCrysler

HULT
International Business School
Human Resources






Andreas Cseh November 11, 2003






“We are working within structures of yesterday with
today’s instruments
on strategies for tomorrow – mostly with people,
that have created within the cultures
of the day before yesterday the structures of yesterday
and the most likely won’t survive the day beyond
tomorrow within their companies.”
(Prof. Knut Bleicher)


On Thursday, May 9th, 1998, Chrysler Corporation and Germany’s
Daimler-Benz AG formally announced a $36 billion merger, creating a new automotive giant stretching across two continents.

The new company, DaimlerChrysler, combined Germany’s biggest industrial company with the third-largest U.S. automaker which once used a “Buy American” slogan and which was best-known for Jeeps, minivans and light trucks.

If DaimlerChrysler were a country, it would rank 37th in the world i...