Organizational Behaviour - Essay Example

Managing OB is a relatively complex process in normal situations, especially if a major change occurs like mergers and acquisitions (M&A) or other important structural or managerial changes within an organization. This organizational change is quite often stressful to everyone concerned. There may be fears of loss of jobs, changes in duties and responsibilities, fears (or hopes) of change in the compensation structure, and the ever present attitude of resistance to change. This paper is a study of organizational behaviour, culture, and change in the context of an acquisition of two banks in the Republic of Cyprus.

The study will be with reference to major theories, perceptions, books, journals, and that have been evolved over the years with regard to OB, culture and change. The Laiki Bank made an offer to Egnatia Bank, and the Marfin Financial Group in September 2006, and successfully acquired them a month later. The name of the organization (Laiki Bank) was changed to Marfin Popular Bank Public Company Ltd. The entity will be referred to Marfin Popular Bank in the rest of the paper. At the time of the acquisition Laiki Bank was one of the largest and oldest banks in Cyprus.

What is interesting is that the other two banks were also similar in size and were running profitably. The offer to acquire the other two banks was approved by the shareholders of Laiki Bank and the acquisition took place a month after the offer was made. The apparent “motivation behind the merger was to create a strong financial group to facilitate expansion into the broader banking and financial market of the Balkan states and southeastern Europe” (Morley & Ward, 2008, P. 22). The Laiki Bank was partly owned by HSBC, which gave up its twenty one percent stake after the acquisition.

In that sense, the management and employees of the bank had the