Perceived procedural justice and employee responses to an organizational merger

Abstract

This study investigated the effects of procedural justice perceptions on employee responses to an organizational merger. On the basis of research on organizational justice and the social psychological theory of intergroup relations, our main hypothesis was that perceived justice of the merger implementation is positively related to post-merger organizational identification and perceptions of common ingroup identity. post-merger identification and common ingroup identity, in turn, were hypothesized to be related to positive attitudes towards the employees of the merger partner and to extra-role behaviour. Results based on a sample of 189 employees from a merged organization indicated partial support for our hypotheses. Implications for further research and merger management are discussed.