Perceptions of employee voice and representation in the post-acquisition period: Comparative and longitudinal evidence from an international acquisition

Abstract

Despite the disappointing performance of international mergers and acquisitions and the widespread recognition that their success depends at least partly on how employees are managed during and after an acquisition, very few studies draw on employee accounts of how they are affected by ongoing restructuring and how much influence employees themselves have over this process. The omission is especially important because of the likely role that national institutions play in conditioning the way employees are affected by organizational change in the post-acquisition period. This article investigates employees’ perceptions of whether they experience voice and representation opportunities following an acquisition through analysis of a unique longitudinal and cross-national dataset that demonstrates national differences in this respect. Moreover, there are also national differences in how these perceptions change over time. We highlight the utility of drawing on employee accounts in longitudinal and comparative perspective, suggesting that this represents a fruitful way of breathing fresh life into the debate about convergence and divergence in HRM and employment relations.