Document Type

Article

Publication Title

Journal of Applied Psychology

Publisher

American Psychological Association

Publication Date

2017

Volume

102

Issue

6

Disciplines

Business | Marketing

Abstract

The authors used pre-post merger data from 599 employees experiencing a major corporate merger to compare 3 conceptual models based on the logic of social identity theory (SIT) and exchange theory to explain employees’ merger responses. At issue is how perceived change in employees’ own jobs and roles (i.e., personal valence) and perceived change in their organization’s status and merger appropriateness (i.e., organizational valence) affect their changing organizational identification, attachment attitudes, and voluntary turnover. The first model suggests that organizational identification and organizational attachment develop independently and have distinct antecedents. The second model posits that organizational identification mediates the relationships between change in organizational and personal valence and change in attachment and turnover. The third model posits that change in personal valence moderates the relationship between changes in organizational valence and in organizational identification and attachment. Using latent difference score (LDS) modeling in an SEM framework and survival analysis, the results suggest an emergent fourth model that integrates the first and second models: Although change in organizational identification during the merger mediates the relationship between change in personal status and organizational valence and change in attachment, there is a direct and unmediated relationship between change in personal valence and attachment. This integrated model has implications for M&A theory and practice.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1037/apl0000197

Rights

© 2017 The Authors

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