ABSTRACT
I n an effort to become more competitive in an increasingly complex corpor-ate environment (Dunphy & Staace, 1990; N ahavandi & Malekzadeh, 1988), mergers and acquisitions are rapidly becoming one of the most common
means by which organizations seek to achieve growth and a diversification of their activity base. Cartwright and Cooper (1993) referred to the sharp increases in mergers and acquisitions that have been observed in recent years as an "unprecedented wave" of such activity (see also Shrivastava, 1986). Indeed, in 1999, Holson observed that the announced mergers involved $2.4 trillion U.S. dollars, which was the largest such value on record. However, although it is widely assumed that mergers are a potentially beneficial business practice, more than half of them fail to achieve their financial expectations (Cartwight & Cooper, 1993; Shivastava, 1986). Increasingly, the neglect of the "human" side of mergers and acquisitions has been cited as a possible explanation for many of these failures; in particular, the extent to which the merger partners can be integrated into the new organization has been recognized as a critical factor in determining the success of a merger (Cartwight & Cooper, 1993).
