Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are the most widespread and most reliable international operations in the strategic market. Theoretically, they can respond to a certain amount of conventional goals like creating intrinsic value and performance. Integrating an organizational culture in an M&A process can help top management from both organizations understand cultural differences as fast as possible, in order to reduce consequences. The question remains as to whether we can go from a theoretical

more »

... se to a practical one and achieve results beyond expectations. In this 2015 study we took into account cultural changes, communicated them to the members going into the process, and demonstrated the fundamental role that organizational culture plays. By comparing several approaches surrounding organizational culture, we conclude that this concept should extended to further perspectives, such as the importance of acculturation, cultural tolerance and organizational identity, all present before, during, and after the M&A process. 100 that sector has grown so much, they accounted $ 1.6 trillion, which means an increase of 27%, and the activity keeps increasing, representing 37% of the global activity since 2014. Mergers and acquisitions (M&As) are indeed reliable and widespread international operations because in theory they respond to a lot of conventional goals, such as looking for economies of scale and scope, maximizing the prestige of the purchasing company's leader, reducing competition, misdirecting the undervalue from the stock market, and so on. But one problem remains, if this process considers cultural changes and differences. It also remains unclear what is the role played by organizational culture inside organizations entering the process. We then address these questions: How does the firm adapt its culture, as part of a merger & acquisition? How is organizational culture formed within the integrated substructure? What are the cultural challenges that both parties have to face? Can organizational culture be a strategic asset for the firm? Organizational culture has a diagram of the principles or basic assumptions that a given group has created, discovered, or developed on how to deal with problems related to adaptation in the external environment and internal integration, and it proved it all to be effective enough. Therefore, a correct way can be taught to new members to perceive, think, and feel changes going on in the company. This research aims to make an inventory of organizational culture's and integration strategy's concepts, to point out the choices for an organization going into this process, and to determine what it brings to the culture. It addresses the role of organizational culture during the pre-phase, in-phase, and post-phase; that means how exactly it is supposed to be and what are the impacts of a culture not effectively managed during the pre-phase and post-phase process. Organizational Culture as a System of Values or a Management Tool? In 1871, the British anthropologist Edward Tylor proposed the first scientific definition of this complex object that is called culture. "...that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society" (1871, p. 1). In this descriptive and objective approach, culture is the expression of the entire human society and defines a set of specific elements that explain the basics of operating an organizational entity. It combines different cultural materials, beliefs, and convictions from our own characteristics. These beliefs and convictions depart from national culture, and therefore, form a set of values, myths, rituals and taboos shared in their personal environment and between employees. Although there is some confusion about the use of organizational culture regarding corporate and company culture, the gap in management sciences on the definition of an organizational culture is substantial, and can be compared in two major research works: one from Edgar Schein and the other from Linda Smircich. Smircich provides a much more objective understanding based on the idea that a company has a culture or is a culture (1983). The works of Schein on organizational culture (2006) remain in cognitive and subjective dimensions. According to Smircich, there are two main ways in which culture has been studied in organizations: as a variable and as a root metaphor. The culture as a variable approach focuses on causality. Culture is thought to be able to predict and cause certain outcomes, while the metaphor approach focuses on understanding how