title: Change commitment in low-status merger partners: The role of information processing, relative ingroup prototypicality, and merger patterns.
abstract: Merger announcements cause stress among employees, often leading to low change commitment, especially among employees from the lower-status merger partner. Such stress influences how deeply employees process merger-relevant information. Previous research examined how merger patterns that preserve versus change status differences impact merger support, but did not address how employees' information processing may influence this relationship. The current research addresses this gap through a scenario experiment, focusing on the low-status merger partner. The interplay between merger patterns and information processing was examined regarding employees' prototypicality claims in relation to merger support. Results suggest that an integration-equality merger pattern increases change commitment via prototypicality claims in the new organization, conditional to employees' systematic information processing.
authors.affiliation: Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (ISCTE-IUL), CIS-IUL, Lisboa, Portugal.
authors.forename: Miriam
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6806-0569
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Rosa
authors.affiliation: Trinity College Dublin, Ireland.
authors.forename: Eithne
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Kavanagh
authors.affiliation: The University of Glasgow, UK.
authors.forename: Pavel
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Kounov
authors.affiliation: University of Lodz, Poland.
authors.forename: Sywlia
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Jarosz
authors.affiliation: Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (ISCTE-IUL), CIS-IUL, Lisboa, Portugal.
authors.forename: Sven
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Waldzus
authors.affiliation: Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (ISCTE-IUL), CIS-IUL, Lisboa, Portugal.
authors.forename: Elizabeth C
authors.initials: EC
authors.lastname: Collins
authors.affiliation: Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Steffen
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Giessner
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D004651:Employment / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006608:Hierarchy, Social; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D000073397:Occupational Stress / Q000523:psychology*; D010558:Personnel Loyalty; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: information processing; merger patterns; mergers and acquisitions; relative ingroup prototypicality; social identity