Literature review to develop a study on how the human factor can influence the sucess or failure of mergers & acquisitions

Abstract

Managing change and its effect on employees in a M&A process is one of the biggest challenges faced by managers. It involves knowing how to deal with expectations, uncertainty and stress in order to minimize the impact of resistance to change, thus fostering employee retention and lower levels of turnover, so as to increase the probabilities of a successful integration and outcome. So, the purpose of this Literature Review was to collect information on theoretical approaches and the state of the art in Mergers & Acquisitions, so as to carry-on a study on how the human factor can influence the success or failure of an acquisition process considering some of the main intervening variables or topics such as stress, turnover, uncertainty and expectations of the employees of the acquired unit.