Intra-organizational social relationships during post-merger integration process

Abstract

This thesis contributes to our understanding of the role of employees' intra-organizational social relationships (ISRs) during a major organizational change process such as a post-merger integration (PMI). I focus on two central questions: (1) which ISRs would benefit or detriment employees’ perception of PMI process? and (2) how these effects would be influenced by conflicts employees or their connections face during organizational change? Combining existing research on post-merger integration, organizational change, social networks, leader-member exchange, newcomer socialization, and organizational identification, I develop hypotheses and test how employees' relationship with their supervisors and peers affect their perception of the PMI process and how their relationship with the overall organization during PMI affects perceived association between them and the organization. Central to these investigations are ISRs of employees, i.e. advice-seeking and giving connections, and the conflicts employees face in their work processes due to the PMI process. Specifically, through these three studies I find that those employees who are socially connected with their supervisors in the advice-seeking and giving network perceive the PMI process more positively due to supervisors’ central or brokerage position in this network, or supervisors’ ability to communicate with or energize their connections (Chapter 3); those employees who newly join the merged firm after the merger benefit professionally but perceive PMI adversely due to their ties with incumbent employees (Chapter 4); and those employees who suffer conflicts during PMI end up disassociating from the organization (Chapter 5). I draw on a unique dataset from an international professional services firm in Vietnam, which merged with another domestic professional services firm in 2014. Between 2014 and 2017, I used online surveys, qualitative interviews, and HR archives of the firm to collect empirical evidence for the three studies. Because PMI process in particular and organizational change in general creates uncertainty and ambiguity, looking at the effects of employees' ISRs, and various types of support such relationships generate, within this specific context, would contribute significantly to our understanding of employee perception of the PMI process, their socialization and identification with the firm during this process, and their turnover.