The Impact of Human Resource Management Practices on Employee Readiness for Change during Mergers and Acquisitions

Abstract

Embracing constant and continuous change is a necessity for business success. An organisation must be in a continuous state of change readiness. Researchers have confirmed that for organisational readiness, individual employees must also be open, prepared, and ready for change. Researchers and practitioners have both found employee readiness to be a critical factor in successful change efforts. This study presents the impact of employee perception of human resource management practices on employee readiness for change during pre-mergers and acquisitions. A total of 235 employees from the three largest food companies in Istanbul participated in the study. The data was analysed using correlation and regression analysis. The results show that employees' positive perceptions of the company's career development, compensation, and communication practices positively affect their readiness for mergers and acquisitions.

Information Technology as a Strategic Resource in Encouraging Organizational Change Readiness through the Role of the Human Capital Effectiveness

“…By effective human capital, organizations will be able to grow in the face of market turbulence and critical challenges in the work-life. The second hypothesis has been empirically proven that there is a significant influence between HCE on RTC (Goksoy, 2014).…”

Saving Employee Engagement: Emergent Strategies in Response to Externally Mandated Change

“…Several factors make up this competency. In order to act as an agent of change, extensive research suggests HR managers to have an understanding of the relevance associated with social capital and relationship management, ethical leadership, treating the affected employee as an internal stakeholder, developing consensus among the affected stakeholders, and the role communication plays within the process [26,[28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35]. This mindset has been identified by Salamzadeh, et al [2], who found that more attention should be paid to human resource practices for improved corporate entrepreneurship.…”

“…There are several crucial reasons to enroll internal stakeholders in communications regarding changes. We believe that the most pertinent to this paper include involving those affected in the implementation process [28,33]; maintaining the trust of those affected [30,34] involving HR in meaningful ways (Maheshwari & Vohra, 2015;Teo, 2002); and generating transparent disclosure to all affected parties [32].…”

“…Further, Maheshwari & Vohra [31] and Goksoy [30] stress that HR managers must also maintain the organization's strategic initiatives and mission during their task of implementing the change. In the case of implementation of the FLSA requirement, HR managers must strike a balance between managing compensation changes and acting as stewards of the organization's mission.…”

“…Motivation for the change can be developed by other means as well. Goksoy [30] acknowledges that tampering with compensation may create issues with retaining employees. She further suggests that helping the employee to appreciate their role in the organization and potential for future progression, as well as helping them to understand the compensation system may increase the likelihood of their staying and supporting the change.…”