"I just wish we can still be Eniram in the future" - An intensive case study about organizational culture in post-merger integration
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School of Business |
Master's thesis
Authors
Date
2018
Department
Major/Subject
Mcode
Degree programme
Management and International Business (MIB)
Language
en
Pages
76 + 15
Series
Abstract
Mergers and acquisitions are common in today’s business world. However, they do not always end up as profitable as expected since a large part of them fails. The people aspect in these mergers has been found more and more important lately, as well as the post-merger integration. Post-merger integration is a crucial phase in the merger success and this thesis focuses on the role of organizational culture in post-merger integration. This thesis presents an intensive single-case study about company Eniram, which was acquired by Wärtsilä in the summer 2016. The focus is on the employees of Eniram and how they have experienced the change of organizational culture in the post-merger integration phase and what the biggest cultural challenges and factors contributing to the development of these cultural challenges are. The primary data for this thesis was collected through qualitative semi-structured interviews and it was combined with secondary data from employee satisfaction surveys, exit interviews and the researcher’s own observations at the workplace. The thematic analysis of the data revealed that cultural clashes, weak cultural knowledge, resistance to change, distrust and injustice as well as engagement and motivational challenges were experienced challenging by the employees in the post-merger integration. The main findings for the factors contributing to the development of these challenges were the cultural differences in the companies’ ways of working, weak communication, poor involvement of employees and the remaining identification with the old organization. These were experienced in all organizational levels and throughout the different teams. Thus, the practical implications of this thesis are to emphasize the importance of HR practices, suh as diminishing the cultural differences and creating new common culture, two-way communication, involvement of employees and helping the employees to change their identities. These factors enable the merger success and together the companies are able to do more profit through the synergies than they would as independent entities.Description
Thesis advisor
Vaara, EeroKeywords
mergers and acquisitions, culture, post-merger integration, employee experiences