Acquired Employees' Experiences of Post-merger Organizational Integration

The pending healthcare reform has the Finnish healthcare field facing restructuring, one form of it being of mergers and acquisitions (M&A’s). It is argued that mergers and acquisitions’ success and failure are largely determined by human resource management (HRM) through the process. This thesis presents a case study of the experiences concerning post-merger integration of acquired employees in a large healthcare company in Finland. The purpose of the study is to find out how HRM and M&A practices have been perceived by the employees in order to gain insight in the practices’ success and possibly produce suggestions for improvement. Data collection was conducted through a semi-structured questionnaire survey with 81 respondents. Data analysis comprised of simple quantitative analysis using MS Excel and SPSS, and qualitative analysis by codification and classification. The results show employees are concerned with issues regarding communication, but also with feeling valued by and committed to the new organization. The findings can be indicative of lacking integration planning and leadership. Including culture and human factors in pre-merger due-diligence and integration planning can lead to better integration and increased M&A success. Though not generalizable in themselves, the findings of this study are in line with prior research and theory concerning HRM in M&A’s and change management. More studies are needed in M&A’s HRM processes and change management, both in a Finnish and in a healthcare context