Cultural due diligence & integration · M&A
The human side of the deal, on the record.
The same instrument on every deal — from pre-LOI, before you have access to anyone, through diligence, signing, the first 100 days and twelve months on. Every number traces back to the responses it came from.
Read-only · EU-hosted · No account needed
and inconsistent — thirty years of research on whether acquisitions deliver. The average is not the problem; the variance is.
is the link between cultural difference and whether people accept, stay and make progress. The link to short-term financials is weak.
is when it surfaces. Long after the data room closed and the deck went stale.
Cartwright & Schoenberg (2006), British Journal of Management 17(S1) — thirty years of M&A research: performance gains are modest and inconsistent. Stahl & Voigt's 2008 meta-analysis of 46 studies — cultural difference has a strong negative relationship with socio-cultural integration and only a weak one with short-term financial performance. The widely-quoted 70–90% failure rate is a practitioner figure (KPMG 1999), not an academic finding; we do not rely on it.
The continuum
Culture assessed on the deal clock, not in a report that ages.
One instrument, five points on the same deal. The observation made before the LOI is the observation you compare against at twelve months — the same questions, the same scale, the same record.
PRE-LOI
No access to anyone
Assessment starts before you can speak to a single employee of the target. Public and observable signal only, scored on the same instrument as every later stage.
DILIGENCE
With the target's consent
A standard organisational survey. Respondents see no acquirer brand and no reference to a transaction.
SIGNING
The findings hand over
Friction points carry their evidence, owner and severity into integration. Nothing is re-gathered.
100 DAYS
Is it landing?
The same measures again. Movement is visible because the instrument did not change.
12 MONTHS
Against your own baseline
Compared with this deal's own earlier readings — and, from your second deal on, with your own previous deals.
How it works
One grid. Owned by the advisor, readable by the board.
Workstreams down, deal phases across. Every intersection holds status, owner, activities, evidence and the friction found there — and it keeps its history when the deal moves from diligence into integration.
Shape the grid
Pick the workstreams and phases this deal actually has. Cross-border carve-out and domestic bolt-on are not the same shape.
Gather the signal
Pulse surveys, leadership interviews, HR data and documents — each attached to the cell it belongs to, not a shared drive.
Classify the friction
Every observation gets a severity, an owner and a research pillar. Four steps, colour and label, legible in print.
Publish the memo
The Culture Risk Memo drafts itself from the grid. You write the judgement; the evidence is already attached.
Research backbone
Four pillars. Real citations. One instrument that does not change between deals.
Every classification maps to published M&A research, and every value traces back to the responses and the versioned calculation that produced it. The tenth deal is read against your own previous nine, not against a benchmark we do not have.
How the numbers are made
Nothing here is generated. Every value is calculated.
- Values come from responses and a versioned calculation. Where AI is used it groups and summarises free-text answers; it does not produce a number, a score or a severity.
- The instrument is fixed. The same questions and the same scale on every deal, so two readings are comparable.
- Original responses are retained. Any friction point can be opened back to the answers it was derived from.
- Processing is in the EU, isolated per deal. No customer data is used to train models.
Pricing
Start on one deal. Pay per deal until it pays to subscribe.
From your fourth deal, Professional costs less than buying Deal Passes. We tell you that up front rather than hoping you don't do the arithmetic.
See it on a real deal before you talk to anyone.
The Aurora demo is a fully populated engagement — canvas, friction register, evidence and a drafted Culture Risk Memo. Open it read-only, no account.