Human integration issues during post mergers and acquisitions: A mix methodology approach in the study of successful mergers of humans

The study of mergers and acquisitions is a broad interdisciplinary research field. In the corporateworld, mergers and acquisitions are ever present, and have become an increasingly importantpart of corporate strategies in present. However, the failure rate is alarming and therefore indepthanalysis required incorporating multidisciplinary areas to unearth the reasons behindhigher M&A’s failure rate which is between 70 and 90 percent (Kenny, 2020). During the process,the biggest threat for organisations is unsuccessful attempt of the merger, focus primarily ontransition of the two organisations leaving behind the factors affecting human beings (employees)associated with both organisations. Research have been conducted on this phenomenoninvestigating human factors causing the failure of M&As and empirical evidence available whichis insufficient to provide an in-depth analysis of human related factors due to confidentiality andprivacy issues and underlying human factors during M&As are underexplored. There are severalstudies who have worked on the human issues during M&As however, to my knowledge all studiesare dispersed, and therefore, need for a comprehensive study who have inculcated these combinedfactors and conducted a comprehensive analysis of factors affecting humans during M&As. Thisstudy fulfilling this gap by incorporating multi-disciplinary M&A integration issues of humansbetween two firms divided into 7 broad categories of culture, leadership, communication,emotions, IT/IS, management of change and HRM issues such as employees’ satisfactions,turnover of key people, post-merger performance drops, and morale problems. This study not onlyprovide the rich understanding and in-depth analysis on human factors surrounding changeprocess of M&As but also provide key contributions to the literature and practice by identifyingkey factors which are very important to consider during the integration process of M&As. Mixmethodology approach was used to address these factors affecting humans at work, the results ofthis study show that dealing with the above elements individually and collectively andincorporating them in the M&As policy will result in successful M&As integration which canreduce failure rates. Emerging from these findings, Conceptual Integrative Framework developedwhich can be followed by M&A partners to avoid human issues affecting M&As.