The role of human resource executives in mergers : a comparative case study of two bank mergers, the merger of Westpac Corporation and St. George Bank (Australia) and the merger of Emirates Bank International and the National Bank of Dubai (UAE)

Western Sydney University thesis: Doctoral thesis

Abstract

In recent years, human resources (HR) managers have been triggered to play a more enhanced role in their organisations, especially in making decisions and going through radical and strategic organisational changes such as a merger process (Bjorkman and Soderberg 2003). Today, this requirement is even more crucial because the past decade has been characterised by the enormous growth in mergers. Most of the studies in the field of mergers have focused on the legal and financial aspects of mergers and have a very limited focus (if any) on the human side of a merger which, in fact, has the highest effect, for various reasons, of merger failure. This study addresses the existing research gap in the study of mergers by investigating the most prominent role of HR managers among the different roles that were first defined and characterised by Conner and Ulrich (1996), then enhanced by Ulrich (1997) and later developed by Ulrich and Brockbank (2005). This prominent role will be examined in a merger process at different phases: pre-combination, through integration and post-integration. Further, this study aims to add value to Ulrich's study by adding a new original phase to his model in order to distinguish the actual contribution and how it was performed, whether it was a key role player, a consultative role player, or just a tool/doer role player as HR manager in a merger team. This investigative study looks at two comparative cases of a horizontal merger: one in Australia, the merger of Westpac and St. George Bank; the other in the United Arab Emirates, the merger of the National Bank of Dubai (NBD) with the Emirates Bank (EB) to form the Emirates National Bank of Dubai (Emirates NBD). Specifying the most prominent role of the HR manager in a merger and distinguishing the actual performance contributions required clear indicators at the heart of the merger to be established in order to examine the varied roles and explore the actual performance contributions. In this study, these indicators included: staffing in the merger, downsizing and rightsizing, survival syndrome, and cultural issues in the merger. Based on semi-structured interviews with corporate-level managers in these corporations, the roles and practices of corporate HR managers at different stages of the merger process were analysed. This work demonstrates that HR managers are an essential part of mergers and that HR practices should be given extensive emphasis throughout such organisational change as 'the merger process'.
Date of Award2015
Original languageEnglish

Keywords

  • personnel management
  • bank mergers
  • Australia
  • United Arab Emirates
  • case studies
  • Westpac Banking Corporation
  • St.George Bank
  • Bank Dubayy al-Waṭanī
  • National Bank of Dubai
  • Emirates Bank International
  • Emirates National Bank of Dubai

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