Acquisition

Planning is an essential part of the negotiating process. There is a common saying that suggests failure to plan will lead to failure. People take the time to negotiate because there is something they want from a situation. Assume you were the negotiator for a well-known technology company and have been tasked with negotiating a deal to acquire a smaller technology company.

Mergers and acquisitions are a product of change. The companies involved join together to form an alliance to create a more competitive position. During the process, many employees in the acquired organization will feel uncertain of their futures. This uncertainty can cause “… lowered morale, which leads to increased disloyalty, increased turnover, higher absenteeism, increased stealing, and sabotage.” (Bruckman) The purpose of this paper is to identify issues that could affect an organization in the event of a merger/acquisition and strategies for dealing with these issues. This paper focuses on morale and the effects of anxiety, sabotage, and the use of internal and/or external management consultant. Finally, strategies to mitigate failing morale are presented.

Managers face many people-issues when a merger is announced. An organization can dramatically increase their chances of a successful merger or acquisition by paying careful attention to the people-issues and by carefully reviewing some of the lessons learne Management should take the following steps to research and evaluate the effects of a merger on morale. Management should review case studies on successful mergers and how these organizations dealt with morale issues. (Bruckman 4). Once management has developed a communication plan, specific organizational issues can be identified. The first step is to gather employee concerns. The goal being to uncover what specific issues will require attention and corrective action. The techniques we will employ to gather this information can be informal face-to-face, individual and/or group...