Mergers and Acquisition: Conceptualisation, Motives, and Implications for Human Resource Management

Mergers and acquisitions have consistently remained stable as a management fad that has transcended several decades. This paper is desk research designed to explore extant literature to gain an insight into the meaning, motives, and human resource implications of the twin concepts that have often been used interchangeably. The outcome of the review revealed that even though the concepts of mergers and acquisition have been interchangeably used in the extant literature, there is a sharp difference between them. In addition, it was observed that the human resource function has often been relegated in cases of business takeovers globally. And the relegation may have been responsible for the several cases of takeover failures. It is recommended that top-level management should be proactive in developing an all-inclusive plan from conception to the actual decision on any business takeover since the outcome of the process is a function of what managers and employees make out of the whole process. In addition, it is also recommended that the dynamics of the takeover-human resource should be rescued from the domain of theorizing by instituting hardcore empirical consideration of the human resource implications of mergers and acquisitions