Social Identity and Corporate Mergers

Corporate mergers require proper human resources management to reach their financial and strategic objectives and minimize negative consequences for employee well‐being. Understanding the antecedents of employees’ identification with the merged organization during the corporate merger is crucial, because stronger post‐merger identification results in less conflict and higher levels of motivation. Unfortunately, employees often identify more strongly with their pre‐merger organizations than with the merged organization. One influential approach to understanding the processes underlying organizational identification is the social identity approach ( Tajfel & Turner, 1986 ; Turner, Hogg, Oakes, Reicher, & Wetherell, 1987 ). Research applying this perspective to organizational mergers shows that levels of identification with the merged organization are partly explained by status and dominance differences of the involved organizations, by motivational threats and uncertainties during the merger, and by the representation of the post‐merger identity. Leaders and managers of corporate mergers are able to influence these processes and, thus, to provide a path for successful merger integration.     

Is Work Engagement Exhausting? The Longitudinal Relationship Between Work Engagement and Exhaustion Using Latent Growth Modeling

The relationship between exhaustion and work engagement has received considerable attention during the past decades. Although the theoretical proposition exists that work engagement may increase exhaustion over time, previous research has been mixed. Drawing on the transactional stress model and applying latent growth modeling, we aim to provide a more comprehensive picture of the work engagement–exhaustion relationship over time. In two longitudinal studies, with four measurement points each, we found consistent evidence that a higher initial work engagement related to increased exhaustion over time. Consistent with our hypotheses, a higher initial work engagement also related to less initial exhaustion, and increases in work engagement related to decreases in exhaustion over time. However, contrary to our expectations, a higher initial exhaustion related to elevated work engagement over time. In conclusion, our findings suggest that engaged employees are less exhausted but face a higher risk of exhaustion over time. At the same time, exhausted employees are less engaged, but they have the potential to become more so over time. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings will be discussed in this paper.     

Moving words: dynamic representations in language comprehension

Eighty-two participants listened to sentences and then judged whether two sequentially presented visual objects were the same. On critical trials, participants heard a sentence describe the motion of a ball toward or away from the observer (e.g., “The pitcher hurled the softball to you”). Seven hundred and fifty milliseconds after the offset of the sentence, a picture of an object was presented for 500 ms, followed by another picture. On critical trials, the two pictures depicted the kind of ball mentioned in the sentence. The second picture was displayed 175 ms after the first. Crucially, it was either slightly larger or smaller than the first picture, thus suggesting movement of the ball toward or away from the observer. Participants responded more quickly when the implied movement of the balls matched the movement described in the sentence. This result provides support for the view that language comprehension involves dynamic perceptual simulations.