Managing internal mergers in the health care sector

Many mergers fail to realize their target objectives due to a lack of management attention to human resource issues. This project examines the conditions for change existing prior to the relocation and internal merger of two units of a hospital and makes recommendations to manage the merger successfully. Our survey and interviews of hospital care givers confirmed that they had a very hig:h commitment to resident well-being but this commitment was transferred to the organization only when employees perceived that they had influence over patient care and. working conditions. We applied standard principles of change management and recommended that managers communicate a vision of the future, model Clear Leadership principles, and apply discipline and support to the achievement of goals. In this way the managers could harness the strong pre-existing sense of purpose and commitment displayed by the staff to create a new identity and a successful merged organization.