Joining Forces: Making One Plus One Equal Three in Mergers, Acquisitions, and Alliances

Chapter XI. Damage Control and Recovery

Organizations and their members can be incredibly resilient when a merger or acquisition has gotten off the rails and the combined company has a protracted postcombination slump. Frankly, it is not uncommon: lots of deals are either opportunistic or focus initially on cost cutting. The former doesn't offer much lead time and the latter doesn't provide much of a rallying call for employees to pull together. Moreover, internal politics and competitors' moves can overpower even a thoughtful, collegial, and culturally sensitive integration of firms. The too-common result in the postcombination phase is that firms have to move into damage control. In this chapter, we show some ways that companies can recover ...