Narratives as a tool to study personnel wellbeing in corporate mergers

Abstract

This article presents the methodological solutions used in a study investigating personnel wellbeing in the context of mergers and acquisitions in the Nordic electricity business. There have happened rapid changes in working conditions in general and in the electricity business today in the Nordic countries as on a global scale. As a result, the notion of a secure job with the same employer lasting a whole lifetime career seems to have lost its meaning also in the Finnish electricity distribution sector. This has challenged the traditional idea of wellbeing. We wanted to see how a corporate integration is experienced by those whom it affects most: namely, personnel at different levels of the integrating organization. We were interested to learn how the change affected their wellbeing. A narrative research method was selected for data collection and analysis, focusing on employees' stories about their own wellbeing and the company HR strategy in organizational change. The choice of a narrative methodology was expected to yield stories that convey an understanding about wellbeing which would be difficult to gain by other methodologies. People's feelings and experiences of wellbeing are a fundamental part of the texture of everyday life, which are mediated and reflected by their personal stories.