Mergers and the Psychology of the Acquiring: Is It that of Conquest?

Abstract

This paper is an attempt to understand the psychology of the senior managers of a large acquiring bank in the recently announced merger of public sector banks in India through a case study. The data revealed that contrary to the conventional wisdom, which suggests that employees of the acquiring organisation are likely to have a sense of ‘conquest’ or ‘pride’, the senior managers, in this case, did not display any such feelings. Rather, they had concerns regarding the merger, which are discussed. A few had apprehensions and some showed confidence that the process will be a success. We conclude that each case of merger is impacted by its unique history, HR practices and cultural moorings and needs to be understood in its unique background. The interventions for successful mergers will therefore need to be designed with this uniqueness in mind.