Post‐merger identification as a function of pre‐merger identification,relative representation,and pre‐merger status

This experiment examined the impact of pre‐merger identification (low, high), pre‐merger group status (low, high) and relative representation (low, high) upon identification with a new merger group. In the first phase of the study, 156 university students were assigned to a pre‐merger team of ‘inductive’ thinkers. Pre‐merger identification was manipulated by giving the participants feedback about the extent to which they used the inductionist style. Pre‐merger status was manipulated by informing participants that their team had performed worse or better than a deductionist team on a decision‐making task. In the second phase, the two pre‐merger teams were combined into a merger team of analyst thinkers. Relative representation was manipulated by maintaining most or none of the features of the pre‐merger team in this new merger team. The results revealed that high pre‐merger identifiers identified more strongly with the merger group than did low pre‐merger identifiers, but only when the relative representation was high. Pre‐merger status did not influence post‐merger identification. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.