Sobreviventes da Fusão e Categorias Sociais: Um Estudo Comparativo acerca do Fenômeno das Fusões.

Abstract

Despite the high number of Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) visible all over the world, a phenomenon explained since there is a process of globalization and internationalization of markets, little is known about how to prevent the failure of these operations, failure that is very common nowadays. It seems that there is a lack of reliable theoretical elaborations on the topic, especially those concerning the human side of M&A. On this basis, this study sought to highlight the human and the identity aspects of mergers using theories like the Social Identity Theory and the Social Categorization Theory, which are elements of the Intergroup/Intercategorial perspective reinforced in this investigation. This study sought to evaluate the relationship between social categories (organizations) pre-merger and post-merger, the different degrees of merger survivors and the perceptions of the employees concerning mergers under study. In this study, Merger Survivors are employees who were part of the staff of the companies before the merger, passed by the merger process and remained in the new company with psychological remnants of pre-merger environment and also without proper acceptance; acceptance that goes from the employees towards the new company and from the new company towards them.The study included 128 workers, 37 portuguese and 91 brazilian workers. One unique questionnaire divided into 5 parts was used for the research. The parts are: an adaptation of social identity questionnaire developed by Moreira (2007), a question about the passage through the merger process, a question about the perception of the merger, six questions about survivors of the merger , and lastly, socioorganizational and socio-demographic variables. Analyzes were performed based on the two samples together. The results of the analyzes from the T test for independent samples, Chisquare test and nonparametric tests such as Mann-Whitney, Kruskal-Wallis and Spearman correlation showed that a less favorable perception of the merger and less identification with post/pre-merger categories, are significantly related to a higher merger surviving degree. This research contributed to the understanding of human aspects involved in mergers and, consequently, contributes to the success of these operations.