Every few months a new study confirms what social media tells us every day: Democrats and Republicans no longer like each other much. Some partisans say they won’t date someone from the other party. Others claim they’d disapprove if their child married across party lines.

Now two professors in the Seidner Department of Finance at the Carroll School of Management have shown the business world isn’t exempt from America’s partisan fever. Business people too are shying from interacting with their political opposites.

Professor Vyacheslav (Slava) Fos

In a , Professor Vyacheslav (Slava) Fos, a Hillebrand Family Faculty Fellow, and two colleagues have found that the executive management teams of large American public companies have become more politically homogeneous. Sitting around a conference table has become yet another activity Americans won’t do with political opponents. 

Professor Ran Duchin has identified a practical outcome of the partisan pique—companies have become less likely to merge across party lines. Duchin, the Coughlin Family Professor, and three co-authors show, in a , that companies where employees mostly donate money to one party have become less likely to combine with ones where employees mostly give to the other.

Simply put, in mergers and acquisitions, Republicans prefer to pair up with fellow Republicans, and Democrats with fellow Democrats. What matters these days isn’t whose product lines complement yours, but who shares your views on the right to bear arms.

Both professors’ research was recently highlighted in , and the findings come as a surprise to those who believed that people were less likely to let partisanship color their d