Organizational Mergers Research Articles

ORGANIZATION DEVELOPMENT & CHANGE Conference Symposia Abstracts.

Academy of Management Annual Meeting Proceedings includes abstracts of all papers and symposia presented at the annual conference, plus 6-page abridged versions of the “Best Papers” accepted for inclusion in the program (approximately 10%). Papers published in the Proceedings are abridged because presenting papers at their full length could preclude subsequent journal publication. Please contact the author(s) directly for the full papers. ArticlesORGANIZATION DEVELOPMENT & CHANGE Conference Symposia Abstracts.Published Online:30 Nov 2017https://doi.org/10.5465/ambpp.2005.18781604AboutSectionsPDF/EPUB ToolsDownload CitationsAdd to favoritesTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail AbstractThis article presents several abstracts of symposia about organization development and change. In the paper titled "We See Dead People? Reflective Debate on John Miner's Vision for Organization Science," discusses an analysis of organizational research. "Managing Dualities and Tensions in Planned Organizational Change: Downsizing, M&A, and BPR" explores organizational change. "One Hundred Years of Servitude? Institutional Constructions of Oppression and Difference," that presents a forum of the roles of critical management studies in organizational behavior.FiguresReferencesRelatedDetails Vol. 2005, No. 1 Permissions Metrics in the past 12 months History Published online 30 November 2017 Published in print 1 August 2005 InformationCopyright of Academy of Management Journal is the property of Academy of Management and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder’s express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.KeywordsABSTRACTSCONFERENCES & conventionsORGANIZATIONAL researchDOWNSIZING of organizationsORGANIZATIONAL change -- CongressesREENGINEERING (Management)ORGANIZATIONAL structureCONSOLIDATION & merger of corporations -- CongressesCORPORATE culture -- CongressesDownload PDF

Technological determinism and discursive closure in organizational mergers

In times of organizational change leaders often tell stories that justify publicly the directions in which organizations move. Such stories are always political in nature and often reflect the motives of the storyteller. We observe how leaders in high‐tech organizations use the story of technological determinism in organizational settings as a discursive practice through which they invoke the “inevitability” of technology to justify managerial decisions to the public. Rather than taking ownership of certain actions, managers are able to use this story to claim that certain organizational changes are inevitable, and to eliminate alternative stories. We examine this strategy as it appears in the public discourse produced during two mergers in the high‐tech and telecommunications industries occurring from 1998 to 2002: US West and Qwest, and AOL and TimeWarner. Finally, we demonstrate that the story of technological determinism performs discursive closure around each merger.

Small organization mergers in arts and humanities

AbstractThis chapter discusses a case study of the merger between two relatively small organizations: a local nonprofit arts council and a public county‐level humanities commission. As this case deviates from other merger analyses that tend to focus on larger health and social service agencies, the chapter examines how well key findings of the nonprofit merger literature apply to mergers of organizations of smaller size and in other fields. Generally, we find that the merger literature so far provides sufficient guidance for nonprofit managers in fields such as the arts, where merger pressures have only now begun to mount.

Perceived procedural justice and employee responses to an organizational merger

This study investigated the effects of procedural justice perceptions on employee responses to an organizational merger. On the basis of research on organizational justice and the social psychological theory of intergroup relations, our main hypothesis was that perceived justice of the merger implementation is positively related to post-merger organizational identification and perceptions of common ingroup identity. post-merger identification and common ingroup identity, in turn, were hypothesized to be related to positive attitudes towards the employees of the merger partner and to extra-role behaviour. Results based on a sample of 189 employees from a merged organization indicated partial support for our hypotheses. Implications for further research and merger management are discussed.

Research note: The winds of change—Multiple identifications in the case of organizational mergers

Within the organizational domain, different foci of social identification can be differentiated. In the context of an organizational merger, identification with the former premerger organization, which often continues as a subunit of the larger whole after the merger, and identification with the larger organization post merger are important aspects of an employee's belief system and thus are relevant for work-related attitudes and behaviours. We conducted a cross-sectional questionnaire study among 450 employees of two recently merged hospitals. We hypothesized that both identification with the premerger subunit that still exists as a separate entity after the fusion and identification with the postmerger larger organization will be positively associated with job satisfaction and self-reported citizenship behaviour and negatively correlated with turnover intentions and negative emotions. Furthermore, particularly those employees who are highly identified with both entities should hold more positive attitudes compared to those only weakly identified with both entities. Our hypotheses were largely confirmed. Practical implications for the management of organizational mergers are discussed.

Organizational Consolidation in American Protestant Denominations, 1890–1990

The religious sector in the United States is distinctive for the degree to which institutional change occurs not through the birth and death of organizations, but through mergers and schisms occurring among preexisting denominations. In this article we analyze mergers among mainstream Protestant denominations, as a means both to deepen our understanding of the dynamics of denominationalism and to broaden the field of discussion about organizational merger. We argue that patterns of merger in any sector are institutionally embedded: in the religious sector, the interaction of ingrained tradition and historical contingency influences the range of possible merger partners, the perceived advantages to merger, and the power of actors that may encourage or discourage merger. We pursue this argument using event‐history data from denominations in four Protestant families between 1890 and 1990 to test hypotheses about the determinants of merger. The analysis shows that merger is influenced by denominational identity (family, racial makeup), organizational characteristics (size, centralization, and membership concentration), and the diffuse influence of the ecumenical movement; many of these effects are time dependent, a result of long‐term shifts in the roles of denominational elites.

Maintenance of subjective health during a merger: the role of experienced change and pre-merger social support at work in white- and blue-collar workers

Prospective research on psychosocial effects on employees’ health associated with organizational mergers has been scarce. The first aim of this study was to explore the subjective health effects (exhaustion and functional incapacity) of an organizational merger among employees who had experienced a change in their own job position differently (improved, unaltered, and declined). Secondly, the effects of pre-merger social support (organizational, supervisor, and coworkers) at work on the experienced change in job position and on subjective health were examined. The merger took place in 1999 between two multinational firms of equal size. The study is based on two surveys ( n=2,225) carried out in 1996 and in 2000 in the Finnish part of the company. The data on age, sex, pre-merger sickness absence (1996–98) and subjective health status (1996) were used as covariates. The results indicate that all sources of social support had a significant effect on the experience of change in one's job position. A decline in job position strongly increased the risk of poor subjective health after the merger. Weak organizational support was associated with impaired subjective health, especially in blue-collar workers, while weak supervisor support impaired functional capacity in white-collar workers. In turn, strong co-workers’ support increased the risk of poor subjective health among blue-collar workers when their job position declined. We conclude that negative changes experienced in one's job position and lack of upper-level social support at work create a potential risk for health impairment in different employee groups in merging enterprises.

The impact on officials of public sector restructuring

There has been limited examination of the impact of public sector restructuring on affected officials. This paper seeks to address the imbalance. It discusses the case of the New Zealand Health Funding Authority, dissolved and merged in 2000 as part of a major health sector restructuring programme. The paper overviews literature on change management and organisational mergers, outlines New Zealand's succession of public health sector changes through the 1990s, and details the procedures involved in the health funding authority restructuring. The impact on senior health funding authority staff and their impressions of the change process studied through the lens of a survey conducted in August 2000 are discussed, along with lessons from the New Zealand case.

Invoking Satan or the Ethics of the Employment Contract*

ABSTRACT Studies of mergers of organizations focus upon the financial and economic outcomes, with little attention paid to the effect on the people working in the merging organizations. This paper reports the findings of a study of the impact on managers of an organizational merger. Rather than the cool calculations of accountants and economists and the rational application of a managerial logic, we found the impact on these managers was upon their emotions, which seemed sometimes too buffeted to allow them to continue in their work. A narrative analysis of the stories told by these managers suggested they experienced their involvement with the merging organizations as akin to a Faustian contract, whereby they had sold their souls to the organizational devil and were now reaping the costs. When we came to write this paper we found that using the usual rubrics of academic writing suppressed the sheer emotionality of their experiences. We have therefore followed the imperative of our conclusions, and written our analysis in the form of a play, based upon Christopher Marlowe's Dr Faustus, which allows us to use our interviewees’ own words to illustrate the impact of the merger. The play is, of course, in the format of a tragedy: it has four main characters – the narrator, the manager, Faustus and Mephistopheles – and five acts. We use the Prologue to insert our own words, where we argue for a turn away from the ‘hard’ school of human resource management towards one that is ethically informed. Programme notes contain the technical details which justify our research methods. We remain totally unapologetic for intruding emotions into the rational world of academia.

Staff morale in the merger of mental health and social care organizations in England

This study examined the processes involved in the creation of the Somerset Partnerships Mental Health and Social Care Trust, the first such integrated organisation in England.

Dual or dueling culture and commitment: The impact of a tri-hospital merger.

This article addresses differences in RNs' commitment to their employing hospital versus the umbrella corporate organization, and the role of organizational culture during a tri-hospital merger. This study is the first to investigate the construct of dual commitment in healthcare organizations. Fiscal restraints, decreasing reimbursement, and increasing competition have made organizational mergers and acquisitions prevalent. As corporate culture changes, organizational variables previously related to organizational commitment may no longer apply. RNs employed on general nursing units at 3 hospitals involved in a merger process completed 2 versions of Mowday's Organizational Commitment Questionnaire. Commitment to hospital and corporate system were examined. Semi-structured interviews, participant observation, and analysis of company documents assessed the organizational culture changes that have occurred. Thirty-one percent of the nurses returned completed questionnaires; 9 were interviewed. RNs from the acquiring hospital demonstrated a significantly stronger commitment to the corporate system than the nurses from the acquired hospitals. The RNs at all 3 hospitals showed significantly greater commitment to their own particular hospital than to the umbrella corporate system. Moderate level of commitment reflected uncertainty of job status, work overload, and feelings of unappreciation. These attitudes prevent nurses from exerting efforts on behalf of the organization.

Changing Organizational Cultures

This article addresses mergers in a nonprofit setting through a case study and a discussion of the literature. It addresses some commonly overlooked, though highly essential components of successful mergers: people. Nonprofit human service agencies are fundamentally changing the way they do business. The environment on which they depend is evolving rapidly, forcing many organizational and cultural changes. Mergers of nonprofit organizations operate similarly to those in proprietary settings, particularly around employee issues. Oftentimes the beginning phase of mergers creates workplace ambiguities for workers. In a merger, the culture of each organization must advance a deeper understanding and respect for the other's differences before the staff of each organization can build trust and communicate effectively as one team and create its own new culture.

Staff morale in the merger of mental health and social care organizations in England.

Following the closure of the last Victorian asylum in Somerset, the health authority and county council undertook a review of mental health services. A major outcome of this review was the creation of an integrated mental health and social care provider. The current paper explores the impact of this integration on the morale of staff members involved, using a conceptual model derived from the literature on organizational behaviour. During the year immediately following integration, the average ratings on all measures of role clarity and job satisfaction reduced. For staff members involved in the integration, by far the largest group of whom were mental health nurses, job satisfaction was related to team role clarity, team identification, emotional exhaustion and gender. These effects of the integration on staff morale are discussed in light of the wider research into the determinants of job satisfaction and the conditions for success in merging organizations. The study has significant implications for managerial and professional leadership during organizational change.

The Urge to Merge: A Multiple‐Case Study

AbstractThe authors undertook a comparative study of three recent mergers of nonprofit organizations in a Midwestern urban center, within the context of political‐economy theory. The research explored the impact of the same environmental factor, managed care, on the initial decisions by organizational leaders and the effects of these early decisions on subsequent actions taken to implement the merger. The study tested the authors' model of the motivations for merging, which proposes that the relationship between the decision‐making style of the leadership and the internal and external resources of the prospective partners determines whether the merger is driven primarily by mission, practicality, stability, or fear. Although the findings provide initial support for the hypotheses derived from the model, a demonstration of the differences in the approach to the merger by each organization indicated that other factors emerged as important driving forces during the various phases of the process.

Espoused Values of Organisations

We review a series of studies whose focus is the measurement and comparison of values espoused by organisations in their public documents, in particular their annual reports. We begin by considering the construct of organizational values and the advantages and assumptions involved in using content-analysis of organizational documents to measure espoused values. Three interrelated studies of espoused organisational values are then described. The first of these investigates the value profiles of a sample of large Australian companies in order to test the validity of a previously developed typology of organisational values derived from distributive and procedural justice theory (Kabanoff, 1991). Changes in organisational values over time for the same group of companies are then considered. This study illustrates that how one studies value change, either in a univariate way by comparing single values over time or by comparing the incidence of different organisational ‘types’, that is organisational with different types of value profiles, significantly influences the results and interpretations of changes over time. The final study is a cross-national comparison involving Australian and US organisations that reveals several meaningful differences between the countries in the incidence of organisations with different value profiles. We conclude with a brief discussion of future planned research using the same methodology and focusing on the role of espoused values in organisational mergers and acquisitions.

Potential impacts to process safety management from mergers, acquisitions, downsizing, and re‐engineering

AbstractCorporate organizational mergers, acquisitions, downsizing, and re‐engineering can greatly impact Process Safety Management (PSM) programs and, ultimately, PSM performance. Almost every organization has experienced some degree of change in organizational staffing. A primary objective of this paper is to identify potential adverse impacts to PSM resulting from ineffectively managed organizational changes. Several process safety incidents are examined from an organizational change perspective. In addition, options and strategies are offered for preventing or mitigating adverse consequences associated with these changes.

Organizational identification after a merger: a social identity perspective.

An analysis of the social identity processes involved in organizational mergers suggests that organizational identification after a merger is contingent on a sense of continuity of identity. This sense of continuity, in turn, is argued to be contingent on the extent to which the individual's own pre-merger organization dominates, or is dominated by, the merger partner. In support of this analysis, results of two surveys of merged organizations showed that pre-merger and post-merger identification were more positively related for members of dominant as opposed to dominated organizations, whereas perceived differences between the merger partners were more negatively related to post-merger identification for members of the dominated compared with the dominant organization.

Status, Legitimacy, and Ingroup Bias in the Context of an Organizational Merger

Adopting an intergroup perspective, the research was designed to examine predictors of employee responses to an organizational merger. Data were collected from 120 employees of a newly merged scientific organization. As predicted from social identity theory, the most negative responses to the merger were apparent among the employees of the low status premerger organization. There was also evidence of ingroup bias among both groups of employees involved in the merger—as expected, the bias was most marked on the status-irrelevant dimensions for the employees of the lower status organization, but most marked on the status-relevant dimensions for the employees of the high status organization. Also, in support of social identity theory, the perceived legitimacy of the basis for the status differentiation between the groups was associated with more positive responses to the merger among employees of the low status premerger organization, but with poorer responses among employees of the high status premerger organization. There was consistent evidence that the status by legitimacy interaction was mediated through the extent to which employees of the newly merged organization perceived a common ingroup identity

Integrating cultural issues into the computer and information technology curriculum

Industry leaders and educators in Computer and Information Technology (CIT) have expressed a need for graduates to have a background in professional, societal, and ethical concerns as well as a strong technical capability (Huff and Martin, 1995). Some educators have gone so far as to include cultural awareness: "The cultural dimensions of information technology can no longer be ignored, with the expansion of the global economy, global markets and global communication enabled by information technology" (Hasan and Ditsa, 1998, p. 5). The rationale for supporting and enhancing instruction in cultural issues for CIT workers comes from the growing globalization of the world in communication, the increase of trans-national organizational mergers and partnerships, the merging of various populations within national boundaries, the increasing traffic of individuals to different countries around the world, and the severe shortage of information technology personnel throughout the world. This paper provides material to support the inclusion of cultural issues within the CIT curriculum. The topics identified, which include diversity and multiculturalism, organizational cultures, professional cultures, socio-economic issues, and gender issues, form a foundation body of knowledge that, once learned, can improve and enhance the work of the information technology professional. Exercises are provided that can be incorporated into existing CIT courses across a wide variety of programs, nations, and cultures. As the internationalization of education continues, more exercises and examples will surely arise from the CIT community.

Learning from the Politics of a Merger: When Being Merged Is Not a Choice

Organizational mergers have poor track records for success. Success usually refers to financial success, and little or no evaluation is planned to determine whether the merged partners have a good cultural fit. Therefore, the social and psychological costs of mergers and acquisitions are high. One factor that is part of every merger and acquisition is politics. Politics is both a positive and a negative force in organizational life. This article discusses the ways politics affects the process and outcome of a merger, using the reorganization of the campuses of a large university as an example, and presents lessons learned from managing around the politics of this merger.