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To determine the nature of the relationship between merger survivors' trust, hope, and normative and continuance commitment.

Correlation and multiple regression studies.

The results indicate a statistically significant relationship between merger survivors' trust, hope, and normative commitment. The results of a correlation study indicate no significant relationship between merger survivors' trust, hope, and continuance commitment.

One limitation evolved from the scales used to measure the relationship between the study's constructs. The scales were not isolated to measure particular aspects of merger survivors' trust, hope, nor normative and continuance organizational commitment. Also, debate exists regarding the proper time to evaluate mergers survivors' perceptions regarding the merger.

Trust in management can reduce perceptions of threat and harm, and facilitate constructive, goal‐determined, survivor responses. Hope can enhance merger survivors' sense that they could cope with the merger. In turn, high levels of hope produced more active responses to the merger. Active and constructive survivor responses can produce positive commitment toward the organization. Conversely, a lack of trust in management can increase perceptions of threat and harm in merger survivors. The lack of trust in certain merger survivors can facilitate destructive responses, where the merger survivors' focus is on goals outside the organization.

No systematic attempts to understand the relationship among the constructs has been identified.

Contemporary labor economics has a ready explanation for the role of job training in the labor market. The human capital framework pioneered by Becker (1962, 1993) and Mincer (1962) and now extended by many, many others sees training as an investment in productive capacity that benefits both workers and employers. Employers enhance the productivity of their firms by investing in the skills of their workers, and these productivity gains are passed on to workers in the form of higher wages. Key to all of this is the distinction between general and specific skill. According to the theory, employers will not pay for or provide general skills (i.e. those that are transferable and hence valuable to other employers), because they are averse to being “poached” by more high-wage employers. They will, however, invest in workplace-specific skills, which assure them a return on their training investments.