| The field of mergers and acquisitions (M&As) has greatly expanded over the past quarter of a century. While M&As used to be somewhat more of a U.S. business phenomena, this changed significantly in the l990s, and now M&As are more commonly used by corporations throughout the world to expand and pursue other corporate goals. A merger is a combination of two corporations in which only one corporation survives. The merged corporation typically ceases to exist. The acquirer gets the assets of the target but it must also assume its liabilities. Sometimes we have a combination of two companies that are of similar sizes and where both of the companies cease to exist following the deal and an entirely new company is created. When a merger takes place, there will be conflicts and issues that arrive in the process.;When a business adds new leadership, counterparts, structure and style, the whole organizational situation changes at that point. Every worker is affected by the changes, that is, everyone has to quickly adjust and adapt for the individual survival. Some issues that will result from the change will be initial resistance to the new power structure, change in worker attitude, behavior and/or job satisfaction, and high turnover.;As leadership develops the strategic plans for the acquisition the concerns of the culture and structural makeup of the company are paramount. As the culture and structure of the new organization are addressed, the leadership, given the tools, will be able to form new relationships and better understanding of the employees and management of the acquired company. For this transformation to succeed a majority of the workforce must buy into it. A change in behavior and attitude must take place. Blumenthal and Haspeslagh (1994) state; "While the goal of all corporate transformations is to improve performance, many efforts to improve performance are not transformational. In order to qualify as a corporate transformation, a majority of individuals in an organization must change their behavior. Creating behavioral change is a difficult and long-term process that requires management's concerted and persistent effort. By analyzing dozens of cases of corporate change, three processes that approach change in critically different ways were identified: improving operations, strategic transformation, and corporate self-renewal".;Training and identifying the needs of employees early will relieve some of the uncertainty caused by change. Giving direction and focusing on the objectives presented will ensure the new organizations strategic plans are met with little or no resistance. |
