Merger, Acquisition and Employees’ Work Attitude after Bank Reform in Nigeria

The increasing wave of merger and acquisition in organizations are global experiences and especially in Nigeria since significant banking reforms of 2005, which has created challenges over the years to policy makers, management practitioners, organizational researchers and consultants over the failure of the survival of 75% of most of these corporate marriages at post-merger and acquisition. This study examined the varying effects of the feelings and beliefs of retained employees on conditions of merger and acquisition consequent upon work attitude. Using organizational commitment scale (OCS) and job satisfaction scale (JSS), 280 participants with 140 each on conditions of merger and acquisition were assessed. There were 151 males and 129 females of the age ranged between 25 to 51 years, represented across the banks and selected by means of purposive sampling. A hypothesis was examined at .05 significant levels using the t-test. Result of the prediction that significant reactions emanating from reforms were experienced more in acquired than merged banks on employees’ measures of work attitude at post merger and acquisition. The result of the study proposes that merger and acquisition are technically distinct and vary on their effects across the varying conditions of merger and acquisition. It is further deduced that changes that emanated at post integration producedseparate qualities of marriage which caused the differential resultant effects across merged and acquired banks. The implication reveals that though negative reactions were experienced across merged and acquired banks, acquired banks had the worst of experiences thereby entailing more positive work attitude in merged than acquired banks. This statement establishes the empirical distinctiveness of merger and acquisition Classification-JEL : G34, J23, L23