This paper reports findings from an eight-year ethnographic study of the integration process in a large healthcare system formed in a 1994 merger. We examine the post-merger integration process by analyzing the relative amounts of time that senior managers in one unit of this organization spent discussing various integration topics and issues in their bi-weekly meetings from 1995 to 2002. We also describe the different patterns observed when managers addressed topics in their meetings related to internal unit integration versus integration with other parts of the organization. Finally, we identify a vicious cycle of repeated conflicts in how organizational members made sense of issues that emerged during the post-merger integration journey.
Barr, Pamela1998‘Adapting to unfamiliar environmental events: A look at the evolution of interpretation and its role in strategic change’ . Organization Science9/6: 644–669 .
2.
Bastien, David2000‘Communication, conflict, and learning in mergers and acquisitions’ in Research on the management of innovation. A.H. Van de Ven , H.L. Angle , and M.S. Poole (ed.), 367–396. New York: Harper & Row/Ballinger .
3.
Berger, Peter L. , and Thomas Luckmann1966The social construction of reality: A treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. New York: Doubleday .
4.
Birkinshaw, Julian , Henrik Bresman , and Lars Hakanson2000‘Managing the post-acquisition integration process: How the human integration and task integration processes interact to foster value creation’ . Journal of Management Studies37/3: 395–425 .
5.
Buono, Anthony F. , and James L. Bowditch1989The human side of mergers and acquisitions in organizations.Chichester: Wiley .
6.
Cartwright, Susan , and Cary L. Cooper1993‘The role of cultural compatibility in successful organizational marriage’ . Academy of Management Executive7/2: 57–70 .
7.
Clapham, Stephen , and Charles Schwenk1991‘Self-serving attributions, managerial cognition and company performance’ . Strategic Management Journal12/3: 219–230 .
8.
D’Aveni, Richard , and Ian Macmillan1990‘Crisis and the content of managerial communications: A study of the focus of attention of top managers in surviving and failing firms’ . Administrative Science Quarterly35: 634–657 .
9.
Datta, Deepak K.1991‘Organizational fit and acquisition performance: Effects of post-acquisition integration’ . Strategic Management Journal12/4: 281–297 .
10.
DiGeorgio, Richard M.2001‘Making mergers and acquisitions work: What we know and don’t know – Part II’ . Journal of Change Management3/3: 259–274 .
11.
Graebner, Melissa2004‘Momentum and serendipity: How acquired leaders create value in the integration of technology firms’ . Strategic Management Journal25: 751–777 .
12.
Greenwood, Royston , C. R. Hinings , and John Brown1994‘Merging professional service firms’ . Organization Science5/2: 239–257 .
13.
Hakanson, Lars1995‘Learning through acquisitions: Management and integration of foreign R&D laboratories’ . International Studies of Management and Organization25/1–2: 121–157 .
14.
Haspeslagh, Philippe , and David Jemison1991Managing acquisitions: Creating value through corporate renewal. New York: Free Press .
15.
Hitt, Michael , Jeffrey Harrison , R. Duane Ireland , and Aleta Best1998‘Attributes of successful and unsuccessful acquisitions of US firms’ . British Journal of Management9/2: 91–114 .
16.
Hitt, Michael A. , Robert E. Hoskisson , and R. Duane Ireland1990‘Mergers and acquisitions and managerial commitment to innovation in M-form firms’ . Strategic Management Journal11/4: 29–47 .
17.
Hitt, Michael , Robert E. Hoskisson , R. Duane Ireland , and Jeffrey S. Harrison1991‘Effects of acquisitions on R&D inputs and outputs’ . Academy of Management Journal34/3: 693–706 .
18.
Jemison, David , and Sim Sitkin1986‘Corporate acquisitions: A process perspective’ . Academy of Management Review11/1: 145–163 .
19.
Jeris, Laurel S. , James R. Johnson , and C. Carol Anthony2002‘HRD involvement in merger and acquisition decisions and strategy development: Four organizational portraits’ . International Journal of Training and Development6/1: 2–12 .
20.
Larsson, Rikard , and Sydney Finkelstein1999‘Integrating strategic, organizational, and human resource perspectives on mergers and acquisitions: A case survey of synergy realization’ . Organization Science10/1: 1–26 .
21.
Larsson, Rikard , and Michael H. Lubatkin2001‘Achieving acculturation in mergers and acquisitions: An international case survey’ . Human Relations54/12: 1573–1607 .
22.
Mace, Myles , and George Montgomery1962Management problems of corporate acquisitions. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press .
23.
Marks, Mitchell , and Philip Mirvis1997Joining forces: Making one plus one equal three in mergers, acquisitions, and alliances.San Francisco: Jossey-Bass .
24.
Mintzberg, Henry1990‘The design school: Reconsidering the basic premises of strategic management’ . Strategic Management Journal11: 171–195 .
25.
Mintzberg, Henry1991‘Research note and communications: Learning 1, planning 0. Reply to Igor Ansoff’ . Strategic Management Journal12: 463–466 .
26.
Mintzberg, Henry , and James Waters1985‘Of strategies, deliberate and emergent’ . Strategic Management Journal6: 257–272 .
27.
Nahavandi, Afsaneh , and Ali R. Malekzadeh1988‘Acculturation in mergers and acquisitions’ . Academy of Management Journal13/1: 79–90 .
28.
Napier, Nancy K.1989‘Mergers and acquisition, human resource issues and outcomes: A review and suggested typology’ . Journal of Management Studies26/3: 271–289 .
29.
Ocasio, William1997‘Towards an attention-based view of the firm’ . Strategic Management Journal18/summer special issue: 187–206 .
30.
Osborne, J. David , Charles Stubbart , and Arkalgud Ramaprasad2001‘Strategic groups and competitive enactment: A study of dynamic relationships between mental models and performance’ . Strategic Management Journal22/6: 435–454 .
31.
Pablo, Amy L.1994‘Determinants of acquisition integration level: A decision-making perspective’ . Academy of Management Journal37/4: 803–836 .
32.
Poole, Marshall Scott , Andrew Van de Ven , Kevin Dooley , and Michael Holmes2000Organizational change and innovation processes: Theory and methods for Research. New York: Oxford University Press .
33.
Ramaswamy, Kannan1997‘The performance impact of strategic similarity in horizontal mergers: Evidence from the US banking industry’ . Academy of Management Journal40/3: 697–716 .
34.
Scott, W. Richard2003Organizations: Rational, natural, and open systems, 5th edn.Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall .
35.
Shield, Richard , Richard Thorpe , and Annette Nelson2002‘Hospital mergers and psychological contracts’ . Strategic Change11/7: 357–367 .
36.
Shin, Shungjae , and Angelo S. Denisi 2004 ‘Intergroup cognition during post-merger implementation: The problems of “Us Vs. Them”’. Paper presented at the Academy of Management Conference, New Orleans.
37.
Simon, Herbert1947Administrative behavior: A study of decision making processes in administrative organizations, 4th edn.New York: The Free Press .
38.
Vaara, Eero2002‘On the discursive construction of success/failure in narratives of post-merger integration’ . Organization Studies23/2: 211–248 .
39.
Vaara, Eero2003‘Post-acquisition integration as sensemaking: Glimpses of ambiguity, confusion, hypocrisy, and politicization’ . Journal of Management Studies40/4: 859–894 .
40.
Vaara, Eero , Janne Tienari , and Risto Santti2003‘The international match: Metaphors as vehicles of social identity-building in cross-border mergers’ . Human Relations56/4: 419–451 .
41.
Van de Ven, Andrew H.1986‘Central problem in the management of innovation’ . Management Science32/5: 590–607 .
42.
Weber, Roberto A. , and Colin F. Camerer2003‘Cultural conflict and merger failure: An experimental approach’ . Management Science49/4: 400–415 .
43.
Weick, Karl1993‘The collapse of sensemaking in organizations: The Mann Gulch disaster’ . Administrative Science Quarterly38/4: 628–652 .
44.
Weick, Karl1995aSensemaking in organizations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage .
45.
Weick, Karl1995b‘Organizational redesign as improvisation’ in Organizational change and redesign.G.P. Huber , and W.H. Glick (eds), 346–379. New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press .
46.
Weick, Karl2001Making sense of the organization. Oxford: Blackwell .
