The Survival of Unique Corporate Cultures

In this paper we identify two situations that can lead a firm to hire an executive who supports a corporate culture that differs from the firm's current culture. In the first case, there is a similarity between the firm's culture and that of the candidate, and in the second case, executives who support the firm's culture constitute a minority of the available candidates. In both cases the firm prefers to hire an available candidate, rather than risk a prolonged vacancy. We show how these scenarios can lead to the eradication of unique cultures and to the perpetuation of more common cultures.