Stress and communication across job levels after an acquisition

T Lotz,F Donald

doi:10.4102/sajbm.v37i1.593

Abstract

Mergers and acquisitions are frequently implemented as a strategy for organizational change, despite a fifty-fifty chance of success. One of the frequently cited reasons for the lack of success is that employee reactions receive inadequate attention. Using a sense-making framework, this research investigated the perceptions of employees at different organizational levels of the stressors that they experienced during an acquisition and their satisfaction with the organizational communication that occurred during the process. A quantitative, non-experimental, cross-sectional design was used. The sample consisted of 102 employees from a recently acquired organization, all of whom attended the same communication ‘road show’ regarding the acquisition. Results indicated that there were no differences between managers, supervisors and lower-level employees in the quantity or type of stress and satisfaction with communication. Communication satisfaction had an inverse relationship with sources of stress. The results are discussed in terms of power, sense-making and shifting boundaries.

Highlights

Mergers and acquisitions are frequently implemented as a strategy for organizational change
Areas covered in the literature review below include the process that employees adopt to make sense of organizational change, the relevance of job level in the sense-making process, stress in the merger and acquisition context and communication as a strategy for managing organizational change
The present study examines the role of communication satisfaction in moderating perceived stress during an acquisition

Summary

Introduction

Mergers and acquisitions are frequently implemented as a strategy for organizational change. This research investigates the relationship between employee satisfaction with the organizational communication that occurred during an acquisition and their experiences of stress. Areas covered in the literature review below include the process that employees adopt to make sense of organizational change, the relevance of job level in the sense-making process, stress in the merger and acquisition context and communication as a strategy for managing organizational change. Due to the nature of organizational hierarchy, different levels tend to have different understandings, perspectives and reactions to occurrences in the organization (Sherer, 1998; Fairfield-Sonn, Ogilvie & DelVecchio, 2002) These differences may apply to mergers and acquisitions. They tend to use communication to develop stable, socially derived interpretations of events and their meanings This could apply to mergers and acquisitions where uncertainty is high. There is a relationship between perceived sources of stress and communication satisfaction

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Results

Discussion