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The Disintegrating Effects of Equality: A Study of a Failed International Merger
Author(s) -
Meyer Christine B.,
Altenborg Ellen
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
british journal of management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.407
H-Index - 108
eISSN - 1467-8551
pISSN - 1045-3172
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-8551.2006.00502.x
Subject(s) - operationalization , process (computing) , economic justice , state (computer science) , distribution (mathematics) , perception , economics , economic system , law and economics , positive economics , political science , public economics , sociology , microeconomics , psychology , epistemology , mathematics , computer science , mathematical analysis , philosophy , algorithm , neuroscience , operating system
In the literature on M&A and social justice, equality is regarded as an important principle to facilitate social integration. This article debates what happens when the equality principle is operationalized; from intentions in the pre‐merger process to the distribution of resources and decision‐making rules in the post‐merger process. In a merger between two state‐owned telecoms corporations in the Scandinavian countries, we found that the principle of equality had the reverse effects on social integration to that predicted in the literature. Instead of facilitating the social integration process, the equality principle led to perceptual and structural fallacies negatively influencing social integration. We suggest that these disintegrating effects were particularly strong because this was an international merger between two state‐owned firms of unequal size.