Management Review

›› 2016, Vol. 28 ›› Issue (9): 218-227.

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Post-merger Cultural Integration from the Perspective of Social Networks

Gao Zhenming, Zhuang Xintian, Huang Weiqiang   

  1. School of Business Administration, Northeastern University, Shenyang 110167
  • Received:2014-07-04 Online:2016-09-28 Published:2016-10-21

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Abstract:

The cultural integration after merger and the social networks are co-evolving. This paper constructs the social networks according to the interactions among individuals in the enterprises and establishes a cultural integration model based on the social networks. Using an agent-based model, we investigate the impact of network structures on post-merger cultural integration and merger performances. The simulation results demonstrate that the social network topology has no influence on the whole cultural distance between the two enterprises. Decreasing the social networks' clustering degree will increase the network density and average clustering coefficient at the initial time of cultural integration. Meanwhile, it will decrease the average path length, average vertex betweenness and standard of vertex betweenness. Thus, it can significantly lower the individual turnover, but will make more interpersonal conflicts and reduce the organizational communication effectiveness. We also find that decreasing the differences in the number of interaction neighbors among individuals will raise the individual turnover and increase the organizational communication effectiveness. At last, the topology differences between the social networks of the two enterprises will not make the aforesaid results different.

Key words: social network, merger and acquisition, cultural integration, merger performances