Reação cultural à aquisição: estudo do caso Santander/Noroeste

The main purpose of this study was to analyse the cultural reaction to an acquisition process. The case study was based upon values and beliefs shared out among employees of a Brazilian Bank - recently acquired by the Spanish group Santander Bank - as patterns of acceptance or resistance to that process. To access the necessary data, we interviewed a sample of employees at Santander Bank's agency in the city of Maringá, Brazil. Our revision of the managerial literature had pointed out that, if an integration process is not properly conducted or don't exist (that means that the acquisition process was probably conducted in an impositive way) the resistance will probably be stronger. In spite of that, our study allowed us to identify a cultural acceptance to the acquisition process in the administrative group of employees (managers), and only a partial resistance in the operational group (clerks), in that specific case. Those results showed a differentiated cultural pattern in relation to the fast organizational change in that agency. Finally, we try to present some possible reasons to those results by discussing aspects related to the role of member's interests in the acceptance/resistance to organizational change processes and the power of big economic organizations towards civil society.