Contemporary Management: Leadership and Integration in M&A Strategy

This report examines the merger and acquisition process within the framework of contemporary management, focusing on the cultural integration challenges faced by DeWaal BioHealth. It critiques the integration process, particularly regarding organizational structure and top management staffing, highlighting conflicting values between European and American cultures. The report recommends strategies for resolving these conflicts, emphasizing the need for fair recruitment systems, employee engagement, and effective decision-making processes. It also suggests a governance board to maintain strategy and policy, advocating for fact-based decisions rather than assumptions to ensure successful post-merger integration. The analysis draws upon management and organizational theories to provide insights into improving leadership and HR strategies for a more cohesive and productive merged organization.

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Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Executive Summary
The report has a light on the merger and acquisition process of the world of business. The
business deals are managed by the organisation’s head, so their effectiveness and their way of
the working process are important in that case. The managing aspect of existing shareholder
and process of product culture expansion is creating a difference in nations. Market
extension, revenue, the formation of conglomerate process help to bind the company at the
right way. DeWaal and BioHealth can do the integration starting with the change of
behaviour of the employees. Changing of the behaviour means the team working of both
cultured employees and the employees need to abstain from ‘all about me attitude'. Steve and
Kaspar, the leaders of both the organisations need to focus on the present and future of the
organisations. Both the organisations must bring-in outside help as the talent assessment and
lawyer. In this paper, inefficient management of the organisation, using the Hofstede model
and the synergies are used to make the decisions.

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................4
Conflicting values......................................................................................................................4
Critique the process applied to work out the details of the integration, particularly with regard
to structure and top management staffing..................................................................................5
Recommend the conflicting values be resolved.........................................................................7
The process to be recommended for the two senior executives and their HR people follow to
work out the details of the integration........................................................................................8
Evaluating the usefulness of the management and organisational theories and practices.......10
Conclusions..............................................................................................................................11
References................................................................................................................................12

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Introduction
Cultural differentiation in merger and acquisition creates a huge problem for the
newly formed organisation. The area of business handling is big in that case and extreme
difficulty in language corporate culture, etiquettes all these are relevant in that case to
differentiate those. Recruitment is one of the important concerns in this aspect. The reason
behind the problems is the accumulation of people from both the companies and their work in
couture. The new venture has started their business in New York City. Thus European culture
needs to be shifted in the US and that impact on the corporate change in etiquettes and
behavioural approach of the new company. The mega-company DeWall BioHealth takes care
of the drug-related products and different medications. The projected revenue of the merged
company was $8 billion. But the issue regarding the recruitment strategy and policies taken
by the company is the main concern of that report.
The conflicting values of Europe and American culture are the prime issue in that case
and their employees’ relationship etiquettes, work cultures all these are important and
relevant in that report. The issues are relevant enough to make some compliance changes in
the management and to form a better human resource strategy to recruit some effective
employees.
Conflicting values
There are some issues in case merger and acquisition as more than one company is
involved with the process. The issue in law compliance, cultural and communication
obstacles, political support and market penetration in the different market all these are
relevant in that case. Management wants to curtail their numbers of employees from 120 to
65. The senior-level employees are the asset for the company, but the company needs to do
that call for the sustainable development of the merged organisation (Tait et al., 2013). The

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problem in corporate culture is different in both the nature and people from Europe face lots
of trouble at New York, the change in culture impacted on their individual performance as
well. The timing of the workplace is also different. Employees have different work culture as
well and they are accustomed to the process. The transaction n and business dealing is also
different in different nations. Dependability, reliability, loyalty, commitment, consistent,
honesty, efficiency and business corporate mindset are important in that issue and core values
of the business will help the entire process to move on and make some good decision that
strengthens the business outcome (Roche, Propeck-Zimmermann & Mericskay, 2013). In this
case study serious decision making and analysis of business outcome is important and that
initiated with the country’s economic condition. Leading in the HR strategy and global
marketing, different marketing thoughts are raised from the two leaders and operation policy
maintenance is a challenging situation in that case.
Critique the process applied to work out the details of the integration, particularly with
regard to structure and top management staffing
Alison, sales and marketing head of BioHealth informed the CEO of the organisation
that people may leave the organisations when they would be redundant after getting new offer
from other organisations. Kaspar has no sense of urgency in mitigating the issues of
recruitment and formulating the HR policies. However, Steve wanted to solve the problems
immediately even if the policies are not suitable for both BioHealth and DeWaal. Steve had
concerned with the current conditions of the organisation and he wanted to formulate new
framework for the organisation after the merger. Steve always wanted to retain the senior and
tenured employees of both the organisations as after the merger, senior employees are
needed. As stated by Ahmmand et al., (2016), after the merger, organisation’s management
always tries to increase the shareholders’ values and it could be rewarding policies for the
employees. Retaining the tenured employees is not an easy tasks; therefore, the management

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tries to start the rewarding the policy so that the organisation can work faster. In case of
merger, speed is one of the important factors. Christian follows the sense of urgency in HR
work and urgency is needed when an organisation follows the merger. As argued by Armano
& Reger (2013), post-merger integration is a complex process of rearranging and combining
the potential of the organisation. Post-integration is the process of synergies which usually
motivate employees to do something good. Steve wanted to accelerate the post-merger
integration period by working faster to manage the people, tasks, resources and supporting
information technology. Netherlands and the USA are two different countries and the
workplace culture of the organisations is also different. Clash of the companies’ culture is
quite evident from the perspectives of the employees and leaders of the organisations need to
understand the culture-specific questions.
Kaspar and Steve could not understand the actual structure of the organisation after
the merger and both the leaders also could not understand staffing process. Staffing process is
a major chaos between the two leaders; Steve wanted to make faster the process of
recruitment. Bruce was the head of HR in BioHealth and Brice was not a type of guy who
was workaholic. On the other side, Kaspar wanted to make Christian Meyer as the head of
HR after the merger. At first Steve agreed that Bruce can be demoted as the director of
corporate training. Before recruitment and the corporate structure of the organisation, both
the leaders of the organisation need to develop the profit and loss statement and understand
the weaknesses and strengths of the workforce. Both the leaders discussed about the multiple
options forgetting the work process. In merger process, staffing is very much important as
employing right set of people and develops the requited skills through the training. The
staffing focuses on improving and maintains the empowerment. According to Banks (2015),
staffing is the crucial resources for the organisation after merger and it is needed to hire the
good employees. It is not always needed to recruit best employees or skilled employees for

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the organisation; however, it is needed to recruit the experienced employees after the merger.
During the recruitment, the management needs to understand the IQ and emotional
intelligence of the employees. In addition, Steve and Kaspar need to understand the
organisational structure to follow so that they can send the command in a hierarchy basis.
Steve wanted to give a structure to the organisation as it can improve the flow of work. The
process of integration after the merger also watched when the two leaders are involved in the
closure of the operation in plant of Indonesia for BioHealth. Being on the top of the
management, it is needed to share the behaviour can set up the authority. Formal outline of
the organisational structure makes the process easier and it adds new positions within the
organisation. Therefore, it also leads to the ready and flexible implementation of staffing.
Recommend the conflicting values be resolved
There was no sense of urgency for Kesper so this was a huge blow for the
organisation as the leader takes lots of time to think over the situation. There was a problem
in decision making and that initiate a loss in human resource. Selection of efficient
employees is the major aspect in that case but the sense of right decision making at the right
time is also important from the organisational perspective to have a right employee at the
right place. On the other hand, Steve wanted all these things in a hurry. As the merger
situation getting placed so time and speed are important for the development of the business.
In that situation, Steve will think and accept the layers of vulnerability to accomplish the
process. Fast decision making is not always productive from the organisation perspective and
engagement with employees will curtail at that moment. So recommended fairness in
organisational decision making is needed along with the issues of loyalty, decision making
and factors identification are important in that aspect (Wright et al., 2012). The process of
feedback taking is also considered as the recommended view in that case. The legitimate way
of role identification and manage every job role in a proper order will be the recommended

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prospect of organisation development. The integration of productive identification and race of
getting a selection of employees is the key issue in that case (Parsaei & Sullivan, 2012). The
process of benchmarking and manage to retain effective employees at the right position is the
key concern at that place, the external condition and business challenges help to find out the
role and perspective of business identification and getting decision making will help the
business for the final decision making. Fair recruitment system needs to introduce so that
ethical alignments will direct in a right way (Griffin, 2013). Training and research procedures
need to be implemented so that effective growth will increase day after day. It shouldn’t be
any haphazard manner of decision making, rather decisions are taken on the base of previous
knowledge and experience.
The process to be recommended for the two senior executives and their HR people
follow to work out the details of the integration
The merger between BioHealth Labs and DeWaal Pharmaceuticals brought forth
many issues and the two key senior executives Steve Lindell and Kaspar have been trying to
solve the problems. Work out processes of integration of two organisations’ merger is as
follows:
Implications of decisions made today: As stated by Greve & Man (2017), there are three
stages of the merger when two organisations merge together, first one acknowledges and
acceptance phase before the merger, transition phase just after the merger and lastly,
gestation phase. Two key leaders of two different organisations must not take the haphazard
decisions. Haphazard approach symptoms are the lack of merger strategy which may
articulate the lack of a strategic goal. There is a lack of decision criteria to measure the degree
about the potential target organisations. The key leaders of both organisations take the siloed
decision which may exclude key perspectives from within the firms which may foster the
sense of distrust between two senior leaders. Therefore, after the merger, the leaders need to

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take the decision in fact-based, not on the assumptions. Governance Board can be made by
the two leaders and the role of the board would be the set and maintain the strategy and
policy of the organisation. The Board can also approve the merger procedures and process.
The organisation must have the resources and resolve the issue arising from the merger.
DeWaal and BioHealth both need to under their respective financial measures, intellectual
property, human capital and technology brands and the synergies. Therefore, the decisions
must be taken by the two leaders based on the facts fast and not performing the delay.
Bring in outside help: Two key leaders of DeWaal and BioHealth can opt to take the
outside help in order to solve the problems of making the employees redundant. First of all,
the leaders can take help of the lawyers to know the process of making the people redundant.
Second, the leaders of the organisation can take the help of talent assessment technique so
that the leaders can understand who the better performers are. The leaders can provide the
gestation period to the employees after the merger and the leaders can ask the HR
professionals to take the talent assessment.
Change the behaviour: During the transition period after the merger, the leaders
need to check the employees' ‘all about me' attitude and the employees must be asked to be
open to all culture. The merger brings two different cultures, work habit and workplace
norms into one single whole. Therefore, changing the needed behaviour for the employees is
very much needed and the leaders should propagate the team working (Brueller, Carmelli &
Markman, 2018). In the transition period, the leaders should as the employees to take the
responsibilities in their daily work.
Training on cultural assimilation: Steve and Kaspar both should ask the employees
to take the training for improving cultural competence. Cultural competence means an ability
to effectively interact with employees of different cultures (Durand, 2016). With the

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amalgamation of different cultures both European and American, it would become imperative
for the employees to have some form of cultural assimilation training.
Fair recruitment: After the merger, both the leaders need to take the fair recruitment
policy for recruiting more potential employees. Employees from both the organisations are
already there, fair recruitment policy will help to recruit right employees. The leaders need to
draw the seniority list so that they can retain those employees.
Evaluating the usefulness of the management and organisational theories and practices
The Netherlands and The USA are two countries from which both the organisations
belong. Hofstede cultural dimensions provide an understanding of the cross-cultural
communication. Hofstede describes the effects of society’s culture on the organisation
(Mazanec et al., 2015). The Netherlands scores low on the power distance dimension as
Dutch people believe in to be independent, equal rights, superior accessible and the
management facilities with empowerment. In Individualism, Netherlands scores higher than
the USA as the Netherlands has a loosely-knit social framework. Employer and employee
relation in the Netherlands has a mutual advantage. USA employees would not tolerate the
unorthodox behaviour in the workplace where time is only money. Steve and Kaspar both
have to understand the needs of the employees on the values of the members. The leaders and
the HR professionals need to pay the value on the employees and these values may relate to
the behaviour using the structure derived from the factor analysis.
BioHealth and DeWaal have been facing the issue of inefficient management where
both leaders cannot understand the recruitment policy. Inefficient management theory is
similar to the managerial efficiency; both the companies, in this case, belong to the same
field. In addition, management control is always not possible to manage the asset efficiently;
however, mergers can be done with the necessary supply of managerial capabilities. Kaspar is

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not competent enough to understand the role of the employees after the merging. The leaders
within the organisations show the incompetent in the complete sense (Waring, 2016).
After the merger, the organisational leaders and the HR professionals of the
organisation need to understand the synergy. As stated by Waring (2016), synergy means to
the type of reactions which occur when two different factors combine to create greater effect
together than that sum of the two independent operations. Therefore, BioHealth and DeWaal
need to combine their synergies so that they can be more profitable in an individual case. The
companies have to create great shareholders' value so that they can use the synergies.
BioHealth and DeWaal can use mainly two types of synergies which are operating synergy
and the financial synergy.
Conclusions
It has been noted that after the merger, DeWaal and BioHelath organisations face the
issues of integration of the merger between these two companies. The first conflict comes in
the reduction of the top management in the merger from 120 to 65. In addition, Kaspar and
Steve cannot decide whether they let the employees go or keep them within the organisation.
BioHealth has been facing the issue of leading brokerage which is degrading stock from buy
to hold. The organisations have been facing the issue of dealing with merged Research &
Development and potential plant closure is the sensitivity issue. Therefore, solving the
problem comes from the cultural assimilation from both organisations’ employees, employee
behaviour, training and the fair recruitment policy.

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