Case Analysis: Conflicting Values and Integration Challenges in Bio Health Labs and DeWaaL Pharmaceuticals

This case study examines the integration challenges faced by Bio Health Labs and DeWaaL Pharmaceuticals following their merger. It analyzes the conflicting values at stake, particularly in terms of cultural integration and decision-making processes. The study critiques the integration process, highlighting issues related to structure, top management staffing, and people and culture issues. It applies relevant management theories such as Integration Strategy, Contingency Approach, Human Relations Theory, and Cultural Integration to provide insights into the problems and potential solutions. The analysis evaluates the usefulness of these theories in understanding the case and offers recommendations for effective integration.

Assignment 2: Case Analysis
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1. What conflicting values are at stake in the case? Identify and explain, using relevant
management theory and concepts. Contextualise your answer with reference to literature
on integration problems in mergers and acquisitions, with specific reference to people
issues.
Mergers and acquisitions of various organizations create several issues and areas of
mismanagement for the leaders and authorities responsible for the companies. In this case, the
values of cultural integration and decision making are at stake. The key person CEO Steve
Lindell and Chairman Kaspar van de Velde are to make the decision for identifying the human
resources that are to be considered in the formation of the merged organization. The values of
cultural integration possess a problem as the organization is from diversified cultures of New
York and Europe. Both the organizations provide key and efficient persons to take up the
leadership positions at the top and executive level of management (Lubatkin, 2013). The issues
to identify the most appropriate lot of managerial individuals from both the organizations.
Another people issue is decision-making issues to analyse who is to stay and who is to leave the
organization. The organization has already lost about 10 key persons and thus it creates a
problem for the CEO Steve Lindell and Chairman Kaspar van de Velde.
As per the words and direction of Trautwein (2013), mergers and acquisitions do not create the
shareholder value expected from them. This is due to the ill combination of cultural differences
and ill-conceived human resources. The Strategy of Integration is to be applied effectively in the
organisation to analyse and put emphasis over the matters of human capital. The strategy claims
for integrating and controlling the issues and conflicts in the organization. The management
theory also provides with gaining control of the human resources, distribution channels,
competitors etc. The integration problem with respect to people issues are identified as employee
retention, cultural integration, leadership assessment, compensation and benefits. These issues
can be resolved by the management theory of Integration Strategy. In the case study of Bio
Health Labs and DeWaaL Pharmaceuticals, the integration strategy will provide with guidance to
resolve the staffing and decision-making issues. Steve undertook a single-minded approach to
identify and analyse the integration of two different cultures. The decision-making process
lengthens which disturbed the talent management for the organisation. The people issues to
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examine and retain the most talented and effective individual from both the diversified cultures
multiplied the problems. Steve failed to pace up the decision making processes which lead to
short-sighted and irresponsible talent management and decision making (Trautwein, 2013).
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2. Critique the process that is being applied to work out the details of the integration,
particularly with regard to structure and top management staffing using relevant
management theory and concepts. Ground your answer to evidence regarding people and
culture issues in merger integration studies.
The case study of Bio Health Labs and DeWaaL Pharmaceuticals has depicted several issues in
the merger and integration studies. The process applied towards structure and top management
staffing included various issues. The case study does not apply a particular process of integration
to merge the two organizations. The decisions for structuring and top management staffing
included several defects and problems which lead to troublesome times for Steve. The key areas
of issues are structured as below:
 Steve lacked the ability to speed up the pace of decision making. He was working under
as single-minded position to analyse the decision making and staffing activities for the
organization. Steve focused towards employing and retaining the executives and senior
level management as of now to resolve the staffing issues.
 This lead to miss management and ineffective decision-making processes for the
organization. As per the management theories and policies, Talent and Knowledge
Management must be practised in an organization to resolve the staffing issues and
problems (Brueller, et. al., 2018).
 Another defect identified in the process applied to analyse the structure and top
management staffing details is both Steve and Kaspar lacked in conducting an analysis of
cost, quality and services to make the decisions objectively. The staffing decision was
made abruptly without digging into the details.
 As per the management theory of Human Relations Theory, the human resources are
considered as the most essential and integral part of the organization’s resources (Waring,
2016). An in-depth analysis of the costing to recruit and retain the executive and
employees must have been undertaken.
 An analysis to execute the quality of services delivered by the selected individuals must
have been studied. Human resources are considered as the driving factor of an
organization towards its growth and success.
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 Thus Steve and Kaspar should have conducted an analysis of costing and service delivery
by the employees to ensure the best possible combination of the employees from both the
organizations (Brewster, 2017).
 Another problem identified in the case study related to people issues is the problem of
Cultural Integration of the employees. The leaders of the business were dependent on the
notation of considering the self-culture as superior to other.
 As per the management theory of Integration Strategy and Contingency Approach,
cultural integration must be practised in organization anticipating mergers or acquisitions.
 The leaders of both organizations failed to integrate the culture together and identify the
most effective employees from both the organizations. The leaders consider each of their
employees to be better culturally integrated than others.
As per the above discussion, it can be analysed that serious problems are identified in the process
undertaken by the leaders of Bio Health Labs and DeWaaL Pharmaceuticals. In order to process
a successful integration and development of the merger, the leaders must have focused towards
the issue of cultural integration of both the organization. The management theory or approach of
Contingency Approach can be applied in this situation. This approach considers for establishing
the decisions according to the current circumstances and scenarios operating in the organization.
Steve the CEO of Bio Health should have focused towards leading and resolving the current
issues of employee integration and top management staffing (Freeman, 2015). Dimensions of
sound decision-making policy such as the fairness and equality, performance analysis, talent and
knowledge management should be exercised. The policies of talent management aid selecting
and identifying the most effective and efficient employees. The management theory of Cultural
Integration will also provide with employee engagement and integration at utmost levels. The
approach to be adopted is analysing the current and future impacts of the selected and retained
employees. The analysis must be based on features such as performance, quality of services,
objectification of the employee capabilities etc. (Brewster, 2017). A well developed and
communicated Human Resource Integration plan in association with the communication plan
must be executed to in the decision making processes and planning for the merged organization.
Thus management policies and approaches must be implied in order to effectively recruit and
staff the top level management of the organization.
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5. Evaluate the usefulness of the management and organisational theories and practices
from the subject that you have applied in analysing the case.
Several management and organizational theories have been employed in conducting the analysis
of this case study. These theories and approaches are of greater importance and have provided
with useful insights into resolving and analyzing the case study. The case provides with a
condition of the merger of Bio Health Labs and DeWaaL Pharmaceuticals. The CEO Steve
Lindell and Chairman Kaspar van de Velde have encountered numerous issues in the staffing of
top-level management and structure of the organization (Lubatkin, 2013). The management
theory of Integration Strategy has been deployed in order to identify the issues in the integration
of employees and mergers. The Integration Strategy has enabled to identify the issue of low
paced decision making in the process of integration. Steve is single headedly undertaking all the
decisions and practices of the organization (Waring, 2016). The prioritized the regulatory
approval while letting go of resourceful and eminent employee from both the organizations. All
of these issues impacted empirically on the performance of the organization. It was analysed that
the sharing process had dropped up to 20%.
With the merger been executed more number of candidates were available for fewer numbers of
seat or job positions. The management approach of Employee Integration enabled to diagnose
the conflict of Cultural Integration of employees. It has been identified that there was a high time
need to form teams and deploy the responsibilities of the employees according to the knowledge
areas and capacities. Steve processed all the decision-making processes alone which resulted in
the problem of decreased performance. The contingency approach of management enabled to
analyse the case study (Brueller, et. al., 2018). It has enabled to identify the criteria for selecting
the employees from both the organizations. The approach of Human Resource Relations Theory
has laid emphasis on identifying the human resources as most integral part of the organizational
performance. The Human Resource Relations has quantified the quality of services and cost of
the resources to be included in the analysis of the performance. The theory of Cultural
Integration has further enabled to analyse the importance of integrating the cultural for the best
combination of the employees at the top management level and the structure of the organization
under the merger (Brewster, 2017).
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References
 Armstrong, M., & Taylor, S. (2014). Armstrong's handbook of human resource
management practice. Kogan Page Publishers.
 Brewster, C. (2017). The integration of human resource management and corporate
strategy. In Policy and practice in European human resource management (pp. 22-35).
Routledge.
 Brueller, N. N., Carmeli, A., & Markman, G. D. (2018). Linking merger and acquisition
strategies to postmerger integration: a configurational perspective of human resource
management. Journal of Management, 44(5), 1793-1818.
 Freeman, J. (2015). Contingency theory. Wiley Encyclopedia of Management.
 Lubatkin, M. (2013). Merger strategies and stockholder value. In Mergers &
Acquisitions (pp. 43-57). Routledge.
 Trautwein, F. (2013). Merger motives and merger prescriptions. In Mergers &
Acquisitions (pp. 14-26). Routledge.
 Waring, S. P. (2016). Taylorism transformed: Scientific management theory since 1945.
UNC Press Books.
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