[0xfaded]

Setting culture is a large part of leadership. Most likely one of two things happened: a) the leadership was complicit in the culture, b) the leadership was too weak to prevent a toxic culture from festering.

In either case, the leadership is not fit for, ahem, leadership.

[bsenftner]

Don't forget the more likely situation of absent leadership and the resulting "Lord of the Flies" situation that results.

FWIW, I had many friends spend time at Activision. Lord of the Flies is an apt description of their internal politics.

[ChrisLomont]

Or leadership is new, is correcting the problems, which takes time.

Otherwise every time you replace leadership you must immediately replace the new leadership, since they too have not instantly fixed the culture.

[olodus]

Guessing you are talking about the general case...? Bobby Kotick is hardly "new" to the Activision leadership position. He has been there for quite a while.

[vanusa]

Apparently the leadership's conduct is just fine for MSFT, though.

Mr. Kotick, who has served as CEO for more than three decades, didn’t inform the board of sexual misconduct allegations that he was aware of, including rape, against managers across the company.

The Nov. 16 article, citing interviews and internal documents, also detailed misconduct allegations against Mr. Kotick, including when an assistant complained in 2006 that he had threatened in a voice mail to have her killed.

[detaro]

Or Microsoft is looking to get rid of him and others first chance, but it's difficult and awkward to get rid of the CEO of a company you haven't actually bought yet and you need to talk to when trying to buy it. Seems equally possible.

[alimbada]

> Apparently the leadership's conduct is just fine for MSFT, though.

A very odd statement to make when at this point all we know is that MSFT is acquiring Acti-Blizzard and very little information about what will happen to the latter's existing leadership post-acquisition.