This chapter introduces the background, purpose of study, and the research questions of this study. The background focuses on describing the psychological reaction of the employees who has being through the process of company’s business strategy and investigate the problem from it. The purpose of this study and significance of this study are addressed.
Background of the Study
In the rapidly developing business world, companies have begun to adapt Merger and Acquisition (M&A) as their business strategy to achieve and maintain their competitive advantages under the current economic situation (Aguilera & Dencker, 2004). This strategy has been widely used in many different industries including: banking, manufacturing, postal services, and telecommunications to name a few. In the past two decades the adoption of M&A has been rising consistently. This is because that many firms have tended to enlarge their organizational capabilities to increase their competitive market position (Gaughan, 2010). This has also created incentive for small and medium-sized enterprises to resolve and address their problems of technological innovation, management practices and the structure of costs such as wages, land price, and transportation (Yasumaru, 2009).
Due to the change that M&A brought, there will be new policies in the organization and some of the employees will get laid off. The uncertainties and ambiguities in a M&A situation generate a series of psychological reaction from employees (Bhal, Bhaskar, &
Ratnam, 2009). These reactions become clear during the intense and drastic changes that occur during M&A. The non-determined outcomes of M&A to the employees will stimulate a series of psychological behaviors that may be perceived in a positive or negative way in many different circumstances. The common human emotions are anxiety, stress, anger, and lack of involvement in the work place (Astrachan, 1995).
With the increase of M&A among organization, and the numerous psychological
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behaviors associated with the change, helping employees to cope with the new working environment and engage themselves into the new job position are the difficult lessons for those working at a managerial level. One of the employees’ work attitudes is job involvement, and it can directly reflect employees’ status of coping the new workplace. Regardless of the external effect, the linkage between an employees’ internal emotional status and job involvement (and, consequently- job performance) bears an obvious significance. The concept of the employees’ sense of wholeness, connectedness at work, and deeper values can be considered as one’s workplace spirituality (Gibbons, 2000).The definition of workplace spirituality includes looking for the meaning in their work, developing a strong connection with the colleagues and the people who are related to the work, and having a clear consistency between one’s main beliefs and the values of their organization (Denton &
Mitroff, 1999).
After M&A, the atmosphere within the new organization will undoubtedly be altered from the original one. A new organizational climate can, and almost certainly will, have a profound effect on an employees’ working attitude. Organizational climate can be represented as the employees’ perceptions of their objective work condition, which include the characteristics of the organization and the interaction/relationships with other people in the workplace. Hence, the organizational support is conceptually either a trigger or moderator of employees’ affective evaluations and reaction toward their job and their work environment (Churchill, Ford, & Walker, 1976).
As for the concept of workplace spirituality, employees’ core values are aligned with the organizational values and they find their work meaningful. Consider of the changes M&A strategy brought to the company; will the impacts of employees’ workplace spirituality help to accelerate the speed of adapting the new working environment and enhance employees’
job involvement?
The phenomenon within the psychological reactions was addressed. Especially under the
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changing environment, the relationship within those factors might have a unique and unpredictable result. When workplace spirituality affects job involvement, perceived organizational support might strengthen or weaken the relationship between them. Therefore, exploring the relationship between these factors could show pertinent in future M&A circumstances.
Statement of the Problem
Several reasons that workplace spirituality has not been paid much attention on was because the society was not advanced in terms of leisure time, technology and communication of exchanging ideas. People did not think of to experience spirituality in their workplace before they can fulfill their need in their personal lives (Maynard, 1992; Neck &
Milliman, 1994; Ray, 1992). It was getting more important in business in the 21st century and has been addressed in many business magazines, such as Businessweek (Conlin, 1999) and Fortune (Gunther, 2001) and has been the focus of several books (Giacalone & Jurkiewicz, 2003). As workplace spirituality has gathered an increasing level of attention, many growing studies provide valuable insights into the topic (Gibbons, 2000).
Yet, still most of the studies were conducted in the western countries since it mainly originates in the U.S. (Conger, 1994). Very few of the studies were discussed from oriental viewpoints (Sheng & Chen, 2012). Jurkiewicz and Giacalone (2004) pointed out workplace spirituality has growing an interest in Eastern countries that promote integration between individual and environment. Also, the majority of the research conducted has concentrated on personal spiritual experiences at the workplace, as opposed to focusing on the impact of workplace spirituality on individual work attitudes and behaviors (Jurkiewicz & Giacalone, 2004; Konz & Ryan, 1999). Even though personal spiritual experience is an essential component in understanding job involvement, it is also important to conduct research on employees’ work attitudes under the changed working environment, which can help those at the managerial level better understand the potential positive impact when it occur on a
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spiritual level (King & Nicol, 1999; Milliman, Czaplewski, & Ferguson, 2003). Positive impacts include enhance individual creativity (Freshman, 1999), increased honesty and trust within the organization (Wagner-Marsh & Conley, 1999), and enhanced sense of personal fulfillment of employees (Burack, 1999).
Perceived organizational support has long been viewed as the recognition by the organization of an individual’s socio-emotional needs, commitment, efforts, and loyalty (Jain, Giga, & Cooper, 2013). Randall, Cropanzano, Bormann, and Birjulin (1999) found that perceived organizational support is positively related to affective commitment, job satisfaction, performance and OCB (Organizational Citizenship Behavior), and negatively related to turnover intentions. Job involvement has not been specifically studied much under perceived organizational support.
In short, job involvement is the variable that has long been viewed as significant in examining a worker’s psychological reaction toward their workplace. However, workplace spirituality has recently been gaining steam as a suggested variable that might affect worker attitudes (Milliman et al., 2003; Pawar, 2009). Surprisingly, there has been a somewhat noticeable lack of these variables being tested within the industries being through the process of M&A. Therefore, there exists a necessity to examine the relationship between workplace spirituality and job involvement under the possible moderating effect of perceived organizational support on the employees who has experienced the M&A strategy empirically in Taiwan.
Research Purpose
The purpose of the study was to investigate the relationships among workplace spirituality, job involvement and perceived organizational support through the employees who has experienced the M&A situation. The specific aims in this study were to identify the correlation of workplace spirituality and job involvement, to identify the impact of perceived
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organizational support on the job involvement, and to examine the moderating effect of perceived organizational support between workplace spirituality and job involvement.
Research Questions
In order to understand the relationships among workplace spirituality, job involvement and perceived organizational support, as well as fill in the gaps of previous research, the present study was designed to examine the following questions.
1. What is the relationship between workplace spirituality and job involvement?
2. Does perceived organizational support has a moderating effect on the relationship between workplace spirituality and job involvement?
Definition of Key Terms Merger and Acquisitions (M&A)
Merger and acquisitions refers to a series of activities and agreements that integrate two firms into one, or absorbs a smaller firm into a larger one. This is obviously a complex event for both organizations involved, but is often necessary for companies to expand or develop their business to a broader operating level (Economics, 1976).
Workplace Spirituality
Workplace spirituality refers to a personal belief that an individual can find spiritual satisfaction through experiencing meaningful work in a community, having a sense of connection with their colleagues, and sensing an alignment of their own values with those of the organization. In short, a feeling of completeness and wholeness that stems, in part, from their workplace (Ashmos & Duchon, 2000; Milliman et al., 2003).
Job Involvement
Job involvement is a cognitive state of employees’ own psychological identification within their job, and the degree of which they actively engaged themselves in the workplace in order to fulfill their intrinsic needs (Allport, 1943; Kanungo, 1982).
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Perceived Organizational Support
Perceived organizational support is a construct to describe an employee’s perception of the organization’s commitment to him or her (Eisenberger, Fasolo, & Davis-LaMastro, 1990).
Perceived organizational support is based on the experiences of the employee and leads to attributions “concerning the benevolent or malevolent intent of the organization’s policies, norms, procedures, and actions as they affect employees” (Eisenberger, Armeli, Rexwinkel, Lynch, & Rhoades, 2001, p. 42).
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