Organizational culture in merging process

According to what is currently going on in international business and venturing into different markets, enterprises are more likely to go for acquisitions than just start from scratch. This is because acquisitions would give them local market knowledge and it would provide them a set of established assets, which in the end means a reduction in investment.

Besides, mergers or acquisitions can really empower and renew market position and transform the company itself. However things are not as easy as they seem to be.

In a successful acquisition, the organizations must create value creation as the most important goal. In order to achieve this target, people of both organizations must cooperate and collaborate to produce benefits and opportunities for the merge.

There are two activities that are very important, first the will and capacities of leaders of the merging firms to collaborate and guide the merge to a future unified work. And second a integration of the people involved in the merge with the primary goal of achieve a single organizational culture for the new company.

Nevertheless, the total staff combinations demands deep efforts, due to challenges presented in terms of nationality, cultural manners, beliefs, values differences.

So that, Acquisitions and merger are seductive profitable opportunities for international enterprises, but it still have many tricky challenges, which are much related to cultural and people management and integration for a success.

Question

According to the case studies (in class and in textbook), what are the practical steps to

minimize the feelings of uncertainty normally expected by employees, and also to facilitate the learning process to occur between the two groups of people in their process of cultural and behavioral integration?

When it comes to merging, it is a find a organizational struggle between the so called “us” and “them”. The two groups want in certain way to keep and maintain their organizational identity and autonomy, it perhaps provoked by the uncertainty of a new company employees’ structure.

According to Elsaa and Veiga (1994), a successful integration are tied to managers’ ability to create a need of strategic interdependence between the two firms, which would make the groups realize of the actually importance of each group of employees and the need for an integration. 

1) Images Retrieved from google images

2) video source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIfWKU4LbLU

3) Alzira Salama, Wayne Holland, Gerald Vinten, 2003. “Challenges and ooportunities in mergers and acquisitions: three international case studies –Deutsche Bank-Bankers Trust; British Petroleum-Amoco; Ford-Volvo