Abstract
This paper examines the role of leadership in the creation of stakeholder value within the context of hospital and health system mergers. Although a hospital and health system merger may have the potential for creating value for stakeholders, variation in post-merger integration leadership practices, change management, and organizational culture may compromise stakeholder value and can ultimately cause a hospital merger to fail. Thus, organizational culture and change management processes play significant roles in the success of a hospital/health system merger. The author will explore how leadership styles, structures, processes, and approaches can have a meaningful impact on culture redesign and organizational change that can create greater value for hospital and health system stakeholders. The research includes the presentation of a merger process framework that has been created based on the experiences of hospital chief executives who have led more than 25 mergers.