The Role Of Organizational Leadership And Human Resource...

Human Resource professionals must implement a proactive strategy to unify two organization’s unique and beneficial culture elements during a merger. According to Cartwright Cooper (1993), â€Å"cultural incompatibility is†¦a cause for poor merger performance. Rather than integrating, the two cultures collided, which†¦resulted in low morale, poor work quality, and declining financial performance...† This paper will focus on the challenges of mergers; discuss the roles of organizational leadership and Human Resource professionals. Additionally, this paper will discuss how Human Resource professionals can overcome mergers challenges. Culture plays an integral role in the success of an organization. Human Resource professionals and†¦show more content†¦More and more, organizations are opting to merge with another organization as a strategic option. Organizations are hoping that a merger will increase revenue, provide diversification, provide opport unities of globalization, and raise growth opportunities (McEntire Bentley, 1996; Buono, Bowditch, Lewis, 1985; Cartwright Cooper, 1993). For these reasons, mergers are an increasingly popular option for organizations. Research shows the estimated average annual cost of a merger in the United States of America exceeds one-trillion dollars (Stanwick, 2000). However, in the face of these rising trends, between fifty-five and seventy percent of all organizational mergers are unsuccessful and ultimately fail (Schraeder Self, 2003). Organizational Culture Organizational culture can be described as shared values and beliefs amongst the population of employees. Basic assumptions exist to inform a group or an individual on what to pay attention to, what things mean, how to react emotionally to what is going on in front of them, and what actions are required to take in various situations. Culture can further be broken down further into three levels. The first level is artifacts, which includes all instances that you would see, hear, and feel in an organization. The second level is espoused beliefs and values, which reflects an individual’s original beliefs and values.