Study On The Factors Of Organizational Identification After Merger And Acquisition

Chinese enterprises’ merger and acquisitions have been into the most prosperous period in the past ten years, either promoted by enterprise independently or government.No matter what kind of merger and acquisition, is facing the same problem, namely how to let the people (especially the employees from the target company) innerly identity the new organization after merger and acquisition and support the merger and integration. As a result, more and more scholars at home and abroad have researched organizational identification as the core concept of personnel integration in merger and acquisition.Through reviewing the existing literature we can find that the study of organizational identification in merger and acquisition mainly focus on two aspects at present:one is the study on factors of post-merger organizational identification, such as pre-merger identification, organizational justice, communication climate, organizational commitment and organizational culture, etc. Another is the research of the organization identification’s change, some researchers think that organizational identification is lasting and difficult to change, even after leaving the company, and the other scholars argue that organizational identification often change with the organization updating, managers can use some measures to encourage and promote the transition of the organizational identification.There are two problems. Firstly, although scholars have proposed many influencing factors which are scattered and lack of effective theoretical support. Secondly, the two views of post-merger organization identification’s change, seemingly contradictory but recognized, are lack of effective theoretical linking.Based on the above discussion, this paper will further research the influencing factors of post-merger organizational identification. We found that the two opposing perspectives actually result from two different sides of organizational identification, is "one of its two sides".On one hand, the pre-merger identification will continuously influence the change of new organizational identification after merger and acquisition, on the other hand, the post-merger integration measures will also encourage and promote the change of organizational identification after merger and acquisition. The change of organizational identification includes two parts of "Co-identification" and "Re-identification"."Co-identification" is the continuation and influencing of the pre-merger identification,"Re-identification" is the shaping and influencing of the post-merger integration measures. The two parts coexist in the process of the change of organizational identification after merger and acquisition and perform different importance at different times.Therefore, this paper constructed a theory model of organizational identification’s change after merger and acquisition, and propose the corresponding influencing factors:"Co-identification" factors-the pre-merger identification and the sense of continuity,"Re-identification"" factors-the expected utility of merger and acquisition, organizational communication climate and organizational justice. Through the empirical interviews and questionnaire data analysis of the three merger and acquisition cases of Zhejiang International Business Group Co., Ltd.("ZIB"). We separately examine the influencing factors of "Co-identification" and "Re-identification", then integrate and compare the two parts’factors at psychological integration period, the conclusions as follow:(1) At the part of "Co-identification", the sense of continuity will play a role of regulation between the pre-merger identification and the post-merger organizational identification. The key of the "Co-identification" is keeping the organization continuity.(2)At the part of "Re-identification", the expected utility of merger and acquisition, organizational communication climate and organizational justice have significantly positive influence on the post-merger organizational identification. It means that the post-merger integration measures play an important role to shape the new organizational identification.(3)Finally, one or two years after merger, when it is the psychological integration period, the influencing of "Co-identification" is not significant, and the process of "Re-identification" effect significantly. Only expected utility of merger and acquisition and organizational justice have significantly influence on the change of post-merger organizational identification, illustrates that the employees’ requirement for merger and acquisition has shifted from the beginning of keeping organization continuity to the expecting of the individual development and new organization’s future at psychological integration period.