Human Resources Management in China

6

Human resource problems during a merger and acquisition

Introduction

This chapter examines a merger and acquisition exercise between two multinational enterprises (MNEs) with head offices in the United States, but with substantial operations in Asia. The take-over demonstrates the differing culture and management styles within the organisations and the problems that both face and have had to deal with. The case study is of Electronic Research Organisation, which was being taken over by Network Systems.

As with any mergers (or acquisitions), there are a number of human resource issues that can have an impact on the success or otherwise of the integration. This is possibly due to the fear that employees may have about the changes and how they ...