Based on a three-year inductive field study of an attempt at radical change in a large firm, I show how middle managers displayed two seemingly opposing emotion-management patterns that facilitated beneficial adaptation for their work groups: (1) emotionally committing to personally championed change projects and (2) attending to recipients' emotions. Low emotional commitment to change led to organizational inertia, whereas high commitment to change with little attending to recipients' emotions led to chaos. The enactment of both patterns constituted emotional balancing and facilitated organizational adaptation: change, continuity in providing quality in customer service, and developing new knowledge and skills.

Results of a two-year inductive field study of British ventures show that entrepreneurs are more likely to acquire resources for new ventures if they perform symbolic actions—actions in which the actor displays or tries to draw other people's attention to the meaning of an object or action that goes beyond the object's or action's intrinsic content or functional use. We identify four symbolic action categories that facilitate resource acquisition: conveying the entrepreneur's personal credibility, professional organizing, organizational achievement, and the quality of stakeholder relationships. Our data show that entrepreneurs who perform a variety of symbolic actions from these categories skillfully and frequently obtain more resources than those who do not. Our data also suggest three factors—structural similarity, intrinsic quality, and uncertainty—that moderate the relationship between symbolic management and resource acquisition. We theorize how the various symbolic action categories shape different forms of legitimacy that help entrepreneurs acquire resources.

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Mergers and acquisitions continue to be prevalent despite frequently yielding disappointing outcomes. Post-merger integration plays a critical role in M&A success, yet many questions about M&A implementation remain unanswered. In this article, we review research on post-merger integration, which we organize around strategic integration, sociocultural integration, and experience and learning. We then lay out a research agenda that centers on expanding our understanding of processual dynamics in post-merger integration. We focus on opportunities related to temporality; decision-making; practices and tools; and emotionality.

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