Merger syndrome: impacts on people in a strategic alliance

Abstract

This paper is based on the author’s master thesis “Social categories and merger syndrome: impacts on people in a strategic alliance” (Coimbra, 2010). For the present publication, the focus will be on two investigated aspects that are the perception of employees regarding the strategic alliance their company entered into, and the merger syndrome. The reactions to merger impact, a kind of organizational combination, have been described in literature as merger syndrome (Buono & Bowditch, 2003; Cartwright & Cooper, 1992; Marks & Mirvis, 2002, 1998) which presents consequences in individuals, groups and organizations. The present study aims i) to evaluate how the strategic alliance is perceived by the workers, in this way, to verify its impact on individuals, according to merger syndrome variable, and ii) creating a valid scale of measure for merger syndrome construct. The study is empirical and quantitative, with a mainly exploratory objective. The sample was composed of 486 employees from a Brazilian company, which entered into in a strategic alliance with a multinational of the same industry. Results revealed that the perception of the combination is mainly positive and the present set of data is not organized in a way to make the latent structure of merger syndrome emerge.