Mergers and Acquisitions: Team Performance

Many mergers and acquisitions in high technology do not yield the expected results and acquired technologies fail to create value as planned. One explanation is the difficulty to transfer and integrate the tacit components of technological knowledge, when work groups and teams are disrupted. Mergers force work group and team members to redefine their roles, change their working approaches, and develop a shared vision and culture. The paper therefore researches high-tech mergers from a team perspective through an exploratory case study of two formerly separate quality assurance groups that were integrated into one. The case study identifies three factors that impact team performance after a merger: strong vision, clear communication, and operational synergy built on an open team culture and a common working approach.