Anne-Sophie Thelisson, Audrey Missonier, Gilles Guieu and Lotte S. Luscher
This paper aims to examine post-merger integration (PMI) through the lens of paradox to determine how paradoxes contribute to successful integration. Although PMI has been…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine post-merger integration (PMI) through the lens of paradox to determine how paradoxes contribute to successful integration. Although PMI has been identified as crucial to understand merger success or failure, the literature on PMI drivers remains inconclusive.
Design/methodology/approach
Drawing on the theory of paradox and two key elements of PMI, strategic interdependency (SI) and organizational autonomy (OA), the authors describe the merger of two listed French companies using longitudinal data.
Findings
The authors identify how the paradox between OA and SI was triggered and fostered PMI success by leading to symbiotic integration. They also show that two capabilities were central in helping the paradox to evolve: preserving the specificities of the organizations and pooling their respective capabilities. These capabilities result from basic decisions and actions during the integration implementation, such as highlighting the expertise of the target firm, refocusing the core activity while valorizing each company’s expertise, clarifying the identity of the new organization on the market and enhancing joint piloting and transferring both general management capacity and functional abilities during the reorganization period.
Practical implications
The authors offer several useful insights for managers trying to manage paradoxical tension throughout the merger process. This study encourages managers to embrace inconsistencies as they make decisions and to shift to dynamic decision-making as a way to adapt to complex contexts.
Originality/value
This study adopts a global and inclusive approach to focus on OA and SI and flesh out a picture of the integration process. It proposes a dynamic process model to conceptualize the stage-wise nature of the PMI process by highlighting the interrelations between OA and SI dynamics.
Details
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Lotte S. Luscher, Marianne Lewis and Amy Ingram
The purpose of this paper is to explain how paradox has become a common label for the organizational complexity, ambiguity and equivocality accentuated by change.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explain how paradox has become a common label for the organizational complexity, ambiguity and equivocality accentuated by change.
Design/methodology/approach
As a label, paradox is socially constructed – the product of actors' daily discourses. Applying a constructivist lens and insights from systems theories, the paper explores the nature and dynamics of paradox related to changing organizations. Building from related studies, the paper proposes a framework that details recurring paradoxes, their communicative sources, and their paradoxical interplay. This action research study of the Lego Company provides an integrative example.
Findings
Most organizational phenomena that one makes the subject of study are brought out through our own social interactions. Processes and product are two sides of the same coin. Exploring paradoxes often creates circles of reflection. An understanding of paradox does not solve problems, but rather opens new possibilities and sparks circles of even greater complexity.
Originality/value
The paper provides a critique of “resolution”, identifying responses to paradox that may energize change.