Managing organizational change during a merger: The case of companies operating in the energy sector

Abstract

Faced with changes in their environment, companies are obliged to constantly improve their competitiveness. This sometimes involves introducing organizational changes, which can take the form of mergers and acquisitions. However, many corporate mergers have failed, prompting researchers to investigate the causes. Researchers are increasingly focusing on the human factor as a determining factor in the success of these operations, and more specifically. Although, this research remains limited, on the importance of change management, which has a significant influence on the outcome of these operations, which are always in demand by companies. This research paper aims to identify the role of organizational change management in the success of mergers, using companies operating in the energy sector as a case study. We adopted an interpretivist stance based on an inductive qualitative approach, through semi-structured interviews. The content analysis revealed that organizational change is accompanied by resistance and integration difficulties. In this study, several factors promoting the change management are highlighted, which could be further enriched by analyzing change in other contexts.