The effect of integration approaches and human resources initiatives on changes in organizational culture and employee attitudes during a merger.


Mergers and acquisitions are often used to achieve sustainable business growth and competitive advantage. Unfortunately, the success rate of mergers and acquisitions rarely meets expectations. In a study of 2 merging Indonesian companies, 101 employees were surveyed after the merger regarding their current and retrospective perceptions of the company’s culture, the effectiveness of human resources in dealing with the merger, and their organizational commitment and employee engagement. It was found that compared with the employees who underwent a transformational approach, those who underwent a preservation approach perceived less culture change during the merger and had greater organizational commitment and employee engagement after the merger. Although greater culture change was related to less organizational commitment, when human resources initiatives were effective, there were no significant relationships between culture change and organizational commitment or culture change and employee engagement. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved)