| This study is an analysis of employee reactions during the pre-combination phase of a pending merger between two pharmaceutical organizations. Two hundred and forty-eight total employees from both organizations responded to an electronic survey measuring their levels of “merger syndrome,” or their levels of tension, distrust, job insecurity, and powerlessness. In addition, respondents' levels of spirituality were measured to determine the relationship between spirituality and merger syndrome. The four components of merger syndrome loaded onto two factors of tension and lack of control (a combination of the scales for distrust, job insecurity, powerlessness, and two items from the tension scale), rather than one factor, as predicted. Due to high internal reliability measures of all subscales and of the combined scale for merger syndrome, the analyses were conducted using the merger syndrome scale. Post hoc analyses were also conducted using each separate subscale as well as the scales for the factors of tension and lack of control. Merger syndrome was higher at the to-be-acquired organization but spirituality levels between the organizations were not significantly different. Post hoc analyses revealed significantly lower levels of all merger syndrome components except tension. High merger syndrome was related to low spirituality, although spirituality was not significantly related to job insecurity or tension. Significant main effects were found for both organization status and spirituality level (low or high); however, the interaction effect between organization status and level of spirituality was not significant. Several additional post hoc analyses were conducted to investigate relationships between merger syndrome, its components, spirituality, and demographic variables. Overall, this study sought to contribute to the minimal empirical literature on mergers, merger syndrome, and spirituality in the workplace. Significant findings for most hypotheses yielded several important implications and warranted further investigation of these variables in organizational settings. |
