Making great minds think alike: Emerging market multinational firms’ leadership effects on targets’ employee psychological safety after cross-border mergers and acquisitions

The impact of leadership on organizational ambidexterity and employee psychological safety in the global acquisitions of emerging market multinationals

“…One of the least understood and examined issues in cross-border mergers and acquisitions are human related factors such as target employees' psychological safety, which have been suggested to drive the failure rates of such operations (Cartwright & Cooper, 1993;Larsson & Finkelstein, 1999;Larsson & Lubatkin, 2001;Haleblian et al, 2009;Gomes et al, 2011;Stahl et al, 2013). The existing studies have enhanced our understanding of the factors that drive high failure rates in cross-border M&As; however, there has been limited examination of the impact of a particular leadership style on EMMs' cross-border acquisitions, including organizational ambidexterity and EPS (Rao- Nicholson et al, 2016). EPS is important in such situations as it enables employees to stay engaged and connected, to adapt to change, and to learn in the aftermath of cross-border M&As.…”

“…In fact successful integration of mergers hinges on a competent leaderships style that facilitate expectations, cultural adjustment, talent retention and employees' psychological safety during M&As integration stage (Kavanagh & Ashkanash, 2006;Nemanich & Vera, 2009;Waldman & Javidan, 2009;Zhang et al, 2015;Rao-Nicholson et al, 2016). The leadership style alternatively referred to as charismatic (Conger & Kanungo, 1998;Waldman & Yammarino, 1999), transformational (Bass, 1985;Pawar & Eastman, 1997;Judge & Piccolo, 2004;Nemanich & Keller, 2007;Vasilaki, 2011a), visionary (Sashkin, 1988) or inspirational, will be examined along with the transactional and laissez faire ones for their impact on EMM cross-border acquisitions; for simplicity, we will refer to the main style under study as 'charismatic'.…”

“…In situations in which Chinese managers-used to practices and policies suited for their home country employees-are required to manage developed economy employees, who are generally both more self-reliant and selfgoverning, they are likely to experience cultural challenges (Hofstede, 1980). Such challenges can manifest themselves as conflicts in a target organization during the postacquisition stage and are mainly driven by the differences in management styles that exist between the acquirer and target companies (Rao-Nicholson et al, 2016).…”

“…Organizational ambidexterity is the organizational ability to engage in the dual aspects of exploration and exploitation (Benner & Tushman 2003, Jansen et al 2008Nemanich & Vera, 2009;Junni et al, 2013). In the acquisitions context, an ambidextrous organization is capable of creating synergies between acquirer and target to generate valuable future exploitative opportunities (Nemanich & Vera, 2009;Junni et al, 2013;Rao-Nicholson, Khan & Stokes, 2016).…”

Cross-border mergers and acquisitions of emerging economies' multinational enterprises — The mediating role of socialization integration mechanisms for successful integration

“…Recent literature has examined the role of leadership in this context. For example, Rao-Nicholson, Khan, and Stokes (2016) looked at the employee related outcomes in the cross-border M&As of the EMNEs with respect to the leadership attributes of the EMNEs. Their study shows that trust in the EMNEs' leadership has a positive impact on the targets' employees.…”