By Prisca Sam-Duru

Organisational Culture and Performance: ThePractice of Sustaining Higher Performance in Business Merger & Acquisition, is a new book written by Dr Henrietta Okoro.

The book offers fresh insights into diverse reasons mergers fail, while offering solutions and recommendations for optimal results in merger organisations. Published in 2023 by Hamilton Books, London, Organisational Culture and Performance unveils the critical fundamentals of managing organisational culture and performance in merger organisations.

The 209-page book with six chapters, discusses mergers and acquisitions in an easy-to-read and of course, understandable style.

All through the book, the author, an adjunct professor of computer information systems and business studies at the Colorado Technical University, and the University of the Cumberlands, references fascinating examples of merged organisations. Okoro’s book is a product of thorough research in organisational culture and performance designed to assist prospective mergers improve and sustain employee retention, job satisfaction as well as record higher performance in partnership mergers and acquisitions.

It also provides solutions to merger failures while offering strategies for sustaining success. In the preface, the author reveals the reason she decided to delve into the subject of business merger and acquisition.

According to her, “Recent merger waves in mostorganisations fail to increase organisational performance and sustain competitive advantage… Most consolidated and merged banks in developing countries are in distress and have failed to increase organisational performance.” She also notes that currently,“organisational leaders face challenges regarding integrating merged cultures to maintain employee commitment, job satisfaction and employee retention.”

And so, from her rich academic and managerial experience spanning over 24 years, Okoro offers a unified treatment of the strategic and tactical aspects of organisational culture and performance in pre/post-merger phases.

“The book integrates a quantitative correlational and regression study with collected data in Nigeria’s sample merged bank in Abuja, federal Capital Territory (FCT). The study findings show that a measure of the combination of cultural traits had a significant relationship with each of the organisational performance measures,” Okoro stated.

With foreword by Raj K. Singh, Ph.D, Professor of Practice in Management School Business, University of California, the book captures basics of managing organisational culture and performance in merged organisations.

In chapter two subtitled “Review of the Literature”, the author examines the historical perspective of mergers and acquisitions in organisations, the diversity climate, and four categories for assessing organisational effectiveness namely; clan, advocacy, market and hierarchy cultures. She also documents current trends in mergers and acquisitions worldwide.

While Chapter three of the book explains the supporting theories such as the transformational leadership and equity theories, in addition to their implications in the merger environment, the fourth chapter focuses on data analysis, findings and results.

Prospective mergers will find chapter five of the book, especially interesting. Subtitled “Discussion”, this chapter provides detailed information on business architecture during pre-merger acquisition also known as Pre-M & A and, postmerger.

It also documents its challenges, perspectives on successful mergers and acquisitions, post-merger integration checklist, change management for improved effectiveness, merger bibliography best practices, toplevel executives’ perspectives, major reasons why mergers fail, and ways to mitigate the challenges.

The book also contains study quiz questions at the end of each chapter. The questions are designed to assist readers appraise their level of understanding of the content.

In the words of the author, the “multi-disciplinary book covers facets of organisational culture traits, behaviours, mergers and acquisitions, and integration challenges and success factors.”

This makes it a valuable resource in business courses such as organisational behaviour, leadership d e c i s i o n – m a k i n g , knowledge management, business information systems, business ethics, business intelligence, information governance, economics, marketing, banking etc. Its detailed documentation of the background of mergers, and acquisitions, why mergers occur, types of mergers, the merits and demerits of mergers and theories behind mergers will be helpful to intending organisations, to avoid merger failures.

D r Okoro’s Organisational Culture and Performance: The Practice of Sustaining Higher Performance in Business Merger & Acquisition is a brilliant material for a d m i n i s t r a t o r s , managers, researchers, top-level executives and many more who are considering or facing the possibility of a merger. Business sectors that grasp market globalisation, organisational leaders, higher institutions, scholars, professionals and many others, will also find the book priceless.