Organizational Acquisition Challenges: Analysis and Recommendations

This report delves into the multifaceted challenges associated with organizational acquisitions, examining potential resistance from senior management, decision-making pitfalls in site selection, and sources of conflict arising from cultural differences. It explores how to mitigate dysfunctional conflict through strategies like assimilation, integration, and separation of cultures. The report also analyzes the negative consequences of a CEO's leadership style, emphasizing the creation of a fear-based work environment and its impact on communication, employee turnover, and overall organizational performance. The analysis provides insights into managing change, fostering effective communication, and promoting a more inclusive and productive work environment in the context of acquisitions.

Running head: ORGANIZATIONAL ACQUISITION CHALLENGES 1
Organizational Acquisition Challenges
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ORGANIZATIONAL ACQUISITION CHALLENGES 2
Organizational Acquisition Challenges
1. Describe two types of resistance senior management may encounter from this
organizational change and how you might address these.
Fear of failure is one of the types of resistance, which will be encountered by the
management due to this acquisition. The managers that were previously handling the geographic
areas will fear to fail as they are now expected to handle sales alone. The managers who will be
in charge of various product lines and now different locations also fear to fail as product failure
reflects on their management. When managers have self-doubt, it will interfere with their self-
confidence and hence affect their growth. The company may experience low output in the first
few months before the managers end up adapting and living with the changes being implemented
by the company (Appelbaum et al, 2017).
Loss of status will also lead to resistance from the managers. The upcoming structural
and cultural changes are threatening to alter some powerful positions and this will lead to a
negative reaction from the managers. Since some managerial jobs are being stripped of some
roles, these managers will feel like they are being stripped of authority and the status that they
are used to enjoying (Stahl et al, 2013). This will lead to resistance, as the managers will feel that
they are being short-changed and that the new acquisition has come to destroy rather than build
them.
To address the above issues, the Bow Valley Manufacturing will have to carry out some
change management initiatives. A structured change management approach has to be taken from
project initiation. Managers should be made aware of the coming changes and explained to why
things are being done in a certain way. The benefits will have to be explained too. The

ORGANIZATIONAL ACQUISITION CHALLENGES 3
organization can engage leaders as agents of change. This way they will not feel that they are
being short-changes but will embrace the change process. The company will have to
communicate change to all those affected (Appelbaum et al, 2017). The communication plans
must be effective and the managers in the geographical regions have to be engaged directly.
2. Discuss the decision-making problems that may have prevented the consultant from
recommending the best site location.
The consultant that was hired by Bow Valley Manufacturing to advise on best location
for production met with a number of executives and this could have led him not to make the best
decision. The consultant may have gone to the company with an already biased position hence
affecting the decision that was made. Sometimes people have biased positions towards certain
tasks that they are to carry out. The consultant may be fond of some top executives hence his
decision may have leaned towards the location that the executives thought was best. The
consultant may also personally know the owners of one or some of the locations that have been
proposed by the company hence this may cloud their judgement (Zsambok, 2014). This is
because he will lean towards favoring the people that he or she already knows.
Another issue that may prevent the consultant from choosing the best site location is
lacking a clear criterion for deciding which the best decision is. The criteria used to chose the
production facility might not be correctly prioritized. Another issue is that the consultant may
fail to take into consideration the current organizational strategy. This may lead to poor decision-
making, as the production facility chosen by the consultant may not be the most effective for the
activities that the organization would like to carry out (Beach, 2014).
The consultant may also have faced an issue as the level of status and influence of the top
executives may be unbalanced. Some people may have failed to speak up and say what they feel

ORGANIZATIONAL ACQUISITION CHALLENGES 4
about the different facilities. Some executives may also have dominated the conversation hence
not giving others a chance to give their views (Beach, 2014). This may have led the consultant
not have a full scope of views before making the final decision.
3. Identify the sources of conflict that best explain this conflict and describe ways to reduce
dysfunctional conflict in this situation.
The major source of the conflict between the managers of Bow Manufacturing and Elbow
Manufacturing was the differences in organizational culture. The cultures of the two companies
are completely different hence making it difficult for employees to work together. The
employees have different ways of working and different values. They are also used to different
working environments. The leaders of the two organizations also seem not to have motivated
their employees as regards to the changes that were to take place. The two companies had
different structures hence it was not easy for Elbow Manufacturing employees to adapt into the
structure at Bow (Marrewjik, 2016). Bow employees were also not used to the leadership and
working style of the employees who had come from Elbow.
The managers can be able to solve this dysfunctional conflict by trying to adapt the
different cultures of the manufacturing companies, Elbow and Bow. The two groups can interact
with each other if the management follows the following steps (Angwin et al, 2016):
Assimilation-One of the companies will give up their culture and practices. In this case,
Elbow manufacturing is the one being acquired hence they will give up their practices and adopt
those of bow manufacturing.

ORGANIZATIONAL ACQUISITION CHALLENGES 5
Integration-Integration can occur if Bow Manufacturing maintains its culture but allows
Elbow to come into the company with parts of its culture. This is done to achieve an overall
culture that will be favorable to the whole company.
Separation-This will happen if both Bow and Elbow manufacturing companies decide
that they will maintain their identities and none of them will change (Marrewjik, 2016).
Management however has to make sure they come up with a way of ensuring the two cultures
can work together without conflict.
4. Based on your knowledge of organizational subculture, what potential problem is the
CEO creating?
The CEO is dominating over the employees and wants only his culture of lean efficiency
and hard work to be adopted. He does not give employees a chance of expressing their views and
punishes those who fail to conform. This is a form of sub-culture but it has negative effects to the
organization. The potential problem that the CEO has created is fear and intimidation among
staff. Staff will not be able to communicate freely and they will conform to the CEOs values due
to fear (Naeem, Maleek & Bano, 2014). This will lead to poor communication within the
company and this can affect the way people work, especially those that do not conform to the
CEOs ways.
The CEO is also creating a potential problem of high turnover rate in the organization.
Employees will not be happy and will keep looking for greener pastures and this will lead to high
turnover rate and lack of stability in the organization (Lehman & Seitz, 2016). This will
eventually lead to poor organizational perfomance due to constant changes hence lack of proper
handover and take over.

ORGANIZATIONAL ACQUISITION CHALLENGES 6
The CEO is also creating a potential problem of lack of open communication between
managers and employees (Naeem, Maleek & Bano, 2014). Employees will always be fearful of
managers hence there will be no transparent communication and this may negatively affect
issues like strategy implementation.

ORGANIZATIONAL ACQUISITION CHALLENGES 7
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