Research Proposal Title: Cultural Issues (Change Management) in Mergers

Moreover, merger of the two companies carries along risks to human resources as it increases in insecurity among employees, lower levels of satisfaction at work, less affective commitment, and a loss of trust in the firms and management teams. Those issues would lead to difficulty in bending cultures, reductions in service levels, poor motivation and loss of key people and clients, and eventually impede the ability of the two companies to achieve their longer-term objectives and result in the failure of merger. [9]

2. When an acquisition takes place, there is usually a lot of concern on behalf of all the company’s employees.  Not only the company that is being acquired also by the company that is doing the acquisition.  Usually there will be jobs lost, consolidation of positions, promotions, demotions, etc. It is the responsibility of the Human Resources Department to ensure

Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) typically refers to a corporate fiscal and strategic set of strategies that deal with the purchasing, selling, and/or combining of different companies or pieces of companies that are able to help grow a company or experience rapid innovation with either creating another business entity or investing research and development from the ground up (Hennepopf, 2009). Modern organizations are so highly complex and competitive that the old paradigm improving efficiency and the bottom line improves, is no longer all it takes to be successful. Companies must continue to reinvent themselves, put Board egos aside and look at the marketplace, their expertise, and what they can do to retain market share. With technology changing so

What is the culture's position on important issues facing the corporation (that is, on productivity, quality of performance, adaptability to

Communication breakdowns within an organization may contribute to resistance in changing organizations. Managers must be prepared to talk candidly about the needs for change, otherwise fear and uncertainty will remain a prevailing element that can damage morale and prevent successful implementation of the desired changes at all levels of the organization. Employees need comprehensive information about the nature, processes, and consequences of organizational change.

Mergers and acquisitions have become a growing trend for companies to inorganically grow a business within its particular industry. There are many goals that companies may be looking to achieve by doing this, but the main reason is to guarantee long-term and profitable growth for their business. Companies have to keep up with a rapidly increasing global market and increased competition. With the struggle for competitive advantage becoming stronger and stronger, it is almost essential to achieve these mergers. Through research I will attempt to dissect the best practices for achieving merger success.

Mergers and acquisitions are a stressful time for any company, regardless if they are the purchaser or the company being acquired. It is important to remember that the goal of this acquisition is meant to positively impact both companies and every one involved is responsible for continuing to bring the customers value. Every department involved is going to have a unique set of challenges and the human resources department is no different. Human resources are going to be responsible for managing any problems regarding employees as this merger continues. In order to prepare for any anticipated problems this report is going to focus on three specific areas; sharing information with employees, managing personnel changes and lastly managing geographical consolidation.

organization and inspire, motivate and align their employees to a common goal. They must be sensitive to change management in order to

Week 3, the lecture on Managing Change describes organizational changes that occur when a company makes a shift from its current state to some preferred future state. Managing organizational change is the process of planning and implementing change in organizations in such a way as to decrease employee resistance and cost to the organization while concurrently expanding the effectiveness of the change effort. Today's business environment requires companies to undergo changes almost constantly if they are to remain competitive. Students of organizational change identify areas of change in order to analyze them. A manager trying to implement a change, no matter how small, should expect to encounter some resistance from within the organization.

In order to examine this issue further, this research will look at a number of different sources. Contemporary managerial sources are explored in order to understand how other voices in the field are describing similar methods for change. First, popular structures for change management are examined, especially within their correlation to Palmer & Dunford (2009). This is followed with an extensive

1.1 Change management is described by Armstrong (1) as “the process of achieving the smooth implementation of change by planning and introducing it systematically taking into account the likelihood of it being resisted”. Change, the fundamental constant in any successful organisation, can be adaptive, reconstructive, revolutionary or evolutionary and can happen for a number of diverse reasons:

For most, resistance to change inevitable, for some it is their personality and others it is fear of the unknown. Organizational structure may change through downsizing, outsourcing, acquisitions, or mergers. In this paper, I will be examining resistance to change during a merger and how to manage this type of stressful and many times unclear change in an organization. There are three key strategies for managing resistance to change; communication, participation, and empathy and support. Throughout this paper I will discuss the three strategies above as well as some other contributing factors to change in an organization.

In the environment of a strategic restructuring process the management of employee relations becomes more critical and more difficult. The stakes are raised during the merger because you have injected and element of change into the employment relationship. Employment relationships are, at their best, found in trust. Trust can quickly be replaced by suspicion in times of great organizational change (Wells, 2004).

One last note as to artifacts; although founders, leaders, and company stories are valued artifacts, so are the people working here and now. Celebrate those with the new merged company; create new stories with new events, programs, and by starting new traditions for the organization. This gives an identity to the new organization, creates the new culture, and begins establishing organizational socialization.

The global economic environment is starting to get tougher, it is a desire to ensure organizations and their managers are ready for their baptism of fire. Under the pressure of such economic drift, market conditions and profit-driven target of the organization, many organizations look to grow through diversification and vertical integration. These strategies often involve acquisitions, mergers and other strategic appliances, which often failed due to the inability to assimilate or adapt in the different cultural settings. This literature review mainly focuses on, firstly, why such strategies fail and, secondly, the suggestions for organizations in order to improve their outcomes and overall performance. Many theories and frameworks are proposed to explain how to improve the organization performance; this paper will be only covering four themes which emerge repeatedly through all the journals used. These themes are external market research to create synergy and internal organizational culture to keep strategy consistency, group work and effective communication to improve efficiency and comprehensiveness, human resources management to promote motivation and job commitment in the organization.