Organizational identification after a merger: a social identity perspective.
An analysis of the social identity processes involved in organizational mergers suggests that organizational identification after a merger is contingent on a sense of continuity of identity. This sense of continuity, in turn, is argued to be contingent on the extent to which the individual's own pre-merger organization dominates, or is dominated by, the merger partner. In support of this analysis, results of two surveys of merged organizations showed that pre-merger and post-merger identification were more positively related for members of dominant as opposed to dominated organizations, whereas perceived differences between the merger partners were more negatively related to post-merger identification for members of the dominated compared with the dominant organization.
van Knippenberg
Daan
D
University of Amsterdam, Work and Organizational Psychology, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. ao_vanknippenberg@macmail.psy.uva.nl
van Knippenberg
Barbara
B
Monden
Laura
L
de Lima
Fleur
F
D006801:Humans; D009936:Organizational Innovation; D012930:Social Dominance; D012933:Social Identification