One reason mergers fail : the two cultures aren’t compatible
Year: 2018
Type: other
Abstract: Amazon’s 2017 acquisition of Whole Foods was met with a lot of fanfare. The deal would allow Amazon to grow beyond e-commerce and sell groceries in hundreds of stores while collecting significant shopper data. Meanwhile, Whole Foods could lower its prices (organic avocados for just $1.69!) and scale up after its recent declines in sales and market share. In the words of Whole Foods CEO John Mackey, the partnership was "love at first sight". A year later, such optimism seems hard to find at Whole Foods. Stories of employees literally crying on the job over Amazon’s changes have begun circulating. Scorecards measuring compliance with a new inventory system are used to punish and sometimes terminate workers. A group of Whole Foods employees have recently taken steps to explore unionizing. Even customers - the stakeholders that Amazon values the most - have been angry over poorly stocked stores. So where did the love go?
Authors: Michele J. Gelfand, Sarah Gordon, Chengguang Li, Virginia K. Choi, Piotr Prokopowicz
Language: English
Subfield: Finance
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2991220784