“Trying before walking down the aisle” ::chinese managers’ construction of post-merger identification after an acquisition in Europe

Organizational identification has attracted many interests in past years. Employees who identify with the organization are typically loyal to their organizations. It is necessary to understand how employees construe and reconcile their identification when they face tremendous organizational changes in M and As. Majority studies focused on antecedents of post merger identification in developed economies. How employees from emerging market construct PMI is still under explored. Our study adopted a qualitative case study to investigate how Chinese managers construct PMI after acquiring a western company. Our findings reveal that Chinese managers take acquisition as an opportunity for their identity enhancement. Though identity enhancement exposes them in dramatic organizational changes, Chinese managers do not perceive these changes as threats because of organizational identity flexibility. Interestingly, two non merging identities are flexibly bridged and merged by newly constructed organizations, and finally contribute to a high PMI