‘Change is our continuity’ : Chinese managers’ construction of post-merger identification after an acquisition in Europe

Shuang, Liang; Lupina-Wegener, Anna; Ullrich, Johannes; van Dick, Rolf

Publication type:	Conference paper
Type of review:	No review
Title:	‘Change is our continuity’ : Chinese managers’ construction of post-merger identification after an acquisition in Europe
Authors:	Shuang, Liang Lupina-Wegener, Anna Ullrich, Johannes van Dick, Rolf
et. al:	No
Conference details:	20th EURAM Annual Conference, online, 4-6 December 2020
Issue Date:	2020
Language:	English
Subjects:	Organizational agile identity; Change; M&A; Post-merger identification; Status
Subject (DDC):	658.1: Organization and finance
Abstract:	This article examines how employees construe organizational identification when they face critical organizational changes after mergers and acquisitions (M&As). The majority of existing studies have focused on the antecedents and the outcomes of post-merger identification (PMI) in Western economies. With more and more Chinese cross-border M&As, the issue of how employees from such markets construct PMI, is severely under-explored. We adopted a qualitative case study approach to investigate how Chinese managers construct PMI after acquiring a European company. Our findings reveal that despite having inferior technology and brands, the organizational agile identity (OAI) is leveraged by Chinese managers to deal with the inferiority and frequent changes, and consequently leads to a high PMI. Our study contributes to the Social Identity Theory (SIT) and provides novel insights into M&As by uncovering the OAI concept – defined as “the organizational members’ sense that their organization is able to move fast and easy in a changing environment” - and its role in constructing a high PMI. We believe that our findings provide a new way for employees to effectively cope with organizational changes while maintaining a sense of identity continuity. As a core characteristic of OAI, keeping changing is corresponding to their organizational identity, which ensure their identity continuity after the acquisition.
URI:	https://digitalcollection.zhaw.ch/handle/11475/27551
Fulltext version:	Published version
License (according to publishing contract):	Licence according to publishing contract
Departement:	School of Management and Law
Organisational Unit:	International Management Institute (IMI)
Appears in collections:	Publikationen School of Management and Law

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Shuang, L., Lupina-Wegener, A., Ullrich, J., & van Dick, R. (2020). ‘Change is our continuity’ : Chinese managers’ construction of post-merger identification after an acquisition in Europe. 20th EURAM Annual Conference, Online, 4-6 December 2020.

Shuang, L. et al. (2020) ‘‘Change is our continuity’ : Chinese managers’ construction of post-merger identification after an acquisition in Europe’, in 20th EURAM Annual Conference, online, 4-6 December 2020.

L. Shuang, A. Lupina-Wegener, J. Ullrich, and R. van Dick, “‘Change is our continuity’ : Chinese managers’ construction of post-merger identification after an acquisition in Europe,” in 20th EURAM Annual Conference, online, 4-6 December 2020, 2020.

SHUANG, Liang, Anna LUPINA-WEGENER, Johannes ULLRICH und Rolf VAN DICK, 2020. ‘Change is our continuity’ : Chinese managers’ construction of post-merger identification after an acquisition in Europe. In: 20th EURAM Annual Conference, online, 4-6 December 2020. Conference paper. 2020

Shuang, Liang, Anna Lupina-Wegener, Johannes Ullrich, and Rolf van Dick. 2020. “‘Change Is Our Continuity’ : Chinese Managers’ Construction of Post-Merger Identification after an Acquisition in Europe.” Conference paper. In 20th EURAM Annual Conference, Online, 4-6 December 2020.

Shuang, Liang, et al. “‘Change Is Our Continuity’ : Chinese Managers’ Construction of Post-Merger Identification after an Acquisition in Europe.” 20th EURAM Annual Conference, Online, 4-6 December 2020, 2020.