COMPANIES’ MERGERS AND AQUISITIONS AS A SOCIAL PROCESS: MODERN REALITIES

Mergers and acquisitions have become one of the main business strategies in the past decades. However, as the international experience indicates, the impact of mergers and acquisitions is rather ambiguous. On the one hand, mergers accelerate the evolution of organizations, strengthen their market positions and competitive advantages, create opportunities for the future development. On the other hand, mergers and acquisitions often lead to severe system crises, caused by various confrontations and risks. From the social and administrative point of view, mergers and acquisitions are commonly perceived as troublesome transformation processes instilling distrust and fear in the workers. Fear of the upcoming mergers is typical not only for ordinary employees, but also for senior management, who remains the most vulnerable unit in the M&A process. Mergers are considered as a stress and challenge for all the categories of employees. The employees realize the instability and the vulnerability of their current statuses, the limited ability to influence the situation and job insecurity. The uncertainty and fear lead to the employees’ resistance of different kinds, which eventually destroys the corporate unity, exacerbates the contradictions between various groups of employees and destabilizes the operation of companies. The authors assume that in the post-industrial age the employees’ perceptions of the merger processes can change and study the trends and factors which determine employees’ attitude towards mergers and acquisitions. Nowadays management strategies and the logic of administrative processes change radically, the structure of companies and the relationships in organizations networks undergo crucial transformations. The tendency to the democratization of organizations has received widespread recognition; companies become more flexible and are more frequently perceived and operate as open systems. The companies start to use the project management structures and the adhocratic corporate culture is formed. All these chances allow to avoid various typical problems during the course of mergers and acquisitions and creating favorable starting conditions for the association. The authors stress the following features of modern organizations: contractual relations between employers and employees, minimization of the bureaucratic procedures and formal reports, the democratic governance, the authority and responsibility delegation and the profit sharing. The company staff, being organized into self-managing teams and possessing high level of competence, is not only better protected in the course of associations, but also has greater development opportunities. Due to these factors mergers and acquisitions are no longer associated with solely negative consequences and cause fear and active resistance of the staff; they start to be perceived as a change of the activity context which can lead to positive results.

1. Andreeva T. Preodolenie soprotivleniya personala pri sliyaniyakh i pogloshcheniyakh [Overcoming the resistance of personnel in mergers and acquisitions] // Upravlenie personalom [Personnel management]. 2002. N 11 (in Russian).

2. Barkov S.A. Zhiznennyi tsikl organizatsii i natsional’nye biznes-kul’tury [The life cycle of the organization and national business cultures] // Vlast’ i up-ravlenie na Vostoke Rossii [Power and governance in the East of Russia]. 2015. N 4 (in Russian).

3. Bazaev S. Mirovoi biznes: epokha sliyaniya kompanii [World business: the era of mergers] // Rynok tsennykh bumag [Securities market]. 1999. N 4 (in Russian).

4. Chernova E.G., Pakhomova N.V., Lyakin A.N., Kamenev K.A., Nesterenko N.Yu., Pashkova V.M., Tsukanov D.A., Khritoshina D.M. Rossiiskii rynok sliyanii i pogloshchenii: napravleniya i perspektivy razvitiya [The Russian market of mergers and acquisitions: directions and development prospects]. SPb., 2011 (in Russian).

5. Depamfilis D. Sliyaniya, pogloshcheniya i drugie sposoby restrukturizatsii kompanii [Mergers, acquisitions and other ways of restructuring the company]. M., 2007 (in Russian).

6. Hage J., Powers C. Post-industrial lives: roles and relationships in the 21st century. Thousand Oaks, 1992.

7. Il’ina G.N., Dorokhina O.V. Vzaimosvyaz’ sliyanii i pogloshchenii s zhiznennym tsiklom kompanii [Interrelation of mergers and acquisitions with the life cycle of companies] // Teoriya i praktika obshchestvennogo razvitiya [Theory and practice of social development]. 2015. N 7 (in Russian).

8. Kei A., Shelton M. Chelovecheskii faktor v sliyaniyakh [The Human Factor in Merges] // Vestnik McKinsey [Bulletin of McKinsey]. 2003. N 4 (in Russian).

9. Khisaeva A.I. Tendentsii razvitiya rynka kapitala v global’noi postindustrial’noi ekonomike: Diss. ... kand. ekon. nauk: 08.00.01 [Trends in the development of the capital market in the global post-industrial economy: diss. ... cand. eqon. sciences: 08.00.01]. Ufa, 2011 (in Russian).

10. Ksenofontova E.G. Liderstvo kak stremlenie ili Istoricheskie tendencii ponimanija fenomena liderstva [Leadership as an aspiration or Historical tendencies of understanding the phenomenon of leadership] // Izvestija Saratovskogo universiteta. Novaja serija. Serija Sociologija. Politologija [Izvestiya Saratov University. New episode. Series Sociology. Political science]. 2016. T. 16. N 2 (in Russian).

11. Maksimovic V., Phillips G. The industry life cycle and acquisitions and investment: does firm organization matter? // Journal of Finance. 2008. Vol. 63. P. 629–664.

12. Petkova I. Bureaucratic versus non-bureaucratic organization: explaining form, function, and change in new forms of organizing // Management and Organizational Studies. 2015. Vol. 2. P. 33–51.

13. Petrova D. Pokupka s syurprizom // Kommersant. Sekret firmy. 2005. N 15 (in Russian).

14. Picinin C.T., Stankowitz R.F., Proni M.W., Pedroso B., Rasoto V.I. Labor in post-industrial society: a reading of drucker and de Masi theories // International Association for Management of Technology IAMOT 2015 Conference Proceedings. Cape Town, 2015. P. 1375–1389.

15. Picula D.A. Mergers and acquisitions: organizational culture and HR issues. Ontario, 1999.

16. Popper K. Otkrytoe obshchestvo i ego vragi [Open society and its enemies]. M., 2005 (in Russian).

17. Porter M. The competitive advantage of nations. L., 1990.

18. Powell J., Hendricks J. The welfare state in post-industrial society: a global perspective. N.Y., 2009.

19. Rahimi F., Fallah S. Study of organizational life cycle and its impact on strategy formulation // Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences. 2015. Vol. 207. P. 50–58.

20. Razmanova R.V. O prirode integratsionnykh protsessov v postindustrial’noi ekonomike [On the nature of integration processes in the post-industrial economy] // Finansy i Kredit [Finance and Credit]. 2011. N 32 (in Russian).

21. Rid S.F., Rid Lazhu A. Iskusstvo sliyanii i pogloshchenii [The art of mergers and acquisitions]. M., 2004 (in Russian).

22. Roulleau-Berger L. Youth and work in the post-industrial city of North America and Europe. Leiden, 2003.

23. Rudyk N.B., Semenkova E.V. Rynok korporativnogo kontrolya: sliyaniya, zhestkie pogloshcheniya i vykupy dolgovym finansirovaniem [The corporate control market: mergers, tight takeovers and redemption by debt financing]. M., 2000 (in Russian).

24. Silverman B., Vogt R., Yanowitch R. Double shift: transforming work in post-socialist and postindustrial societies. L., 1993.

25. Smart B. Post-industrial society. Sage key debates in sociology. Los Angeles, 2011.

26. The Handbook of Mergers and Acquisitions / Ed. by D. Faulkner, S. Teerikangas, R.J. Joseph. Oxford, 2012.

27. Toffler O. Adaptivnaya korporatsiya [Adaptive Corporation] // Novaya postindustrial’naya volna na Zapade [A New Post-Industrial Wave in the Wes]. M., 1999. S. 453 (in Russian).

28. Vershinina I.A., Markeeva A.V. Transformatsiya rynka truda global’nykh gorodov i ee sotsial’nye posledstviya [Transformation of the labor market of global cities and its social consequences] // Teoriya i praktika obshchestvennogo razvitiya (elektronnyi zhurnal) [Theory and practice of social development (electronic journal)]. 2015. N 14 (in Russian).