Chapter Nine
Building Trust Across Groups and National Cultures
In 1998, the largest trans-Atlantic merger ever began with a breach of integrity, when the CEOs of both Daimler-Benz and Chrysler misled people by positioning the acquisition of Chrysler as a “merger of equals.” This integrity breach then grew into major distrust as the failure of collaboration between Chrysler and Daimler-Benz led to more than $30 billion in losses. In fall 2000, the CEO of DaimlerChrysler, Jürgen Schrempp, was quoted in a German publication as saying that the “merger of equals statement was necessary in order to earn the support of Chrysler's workers and the American public, but it was never reality.” He went on to say, “Me being a chess player, I don't normally ...
