The relationship between perceptions of organizational justice and the process of mergers and acquisitions

Organizational justice represents the study of fairness in organizational settings and there is evidence of substantive relationships between an individual’s perception of fairness in the workplace and their attitudes and behaviours. This subject has been largely overlooked in the context of an organizational merger or acquisition, which, considering the impact of employee resistance to change and its relationship with the persistently low achievement rate in mergers and acquisitions, raises a call for its potential influence to be examined. The study investigates the dynamics of perceived fairness within the specific change mechanisms of an organizational merger, and, in particular, considers the antecedents and outcomes of such a phenomenon. The use of a mixed methods design encompassed four separate phases, three of which were conducted within a recently merged university business school. In the first phase a survey revealed that fairness was an important factor in the employee evaluation process. Phase 2 consisted of a series of 25 staff interviews identifying and exploring the antecedents of organizational justice. In Phase 3, a second survey was introduced to test the significance of the key relationships to emerge from Phase 2. An NHS Trust, formed through the merger of two previously independent Trusts, provided the setting for Phase 4 of the study where the second survey, introduced during Phase 3, was administered amongst 386 employees. It was established from this study that the main antecedents of organizational justice evolved from ineffective communication mechanisms, a distrust of authorities and the merger procedures they implemented. The outcome of these perceived injustices was a belief that there had been a breach of psychological contract. The effect on behavioural and attitudinal outcomes from these perceived injustices was lower organizational citizenship behaviour, lower affective commitment and an increase in the intention to leave the organization in the near future.