Low Sense of Continuity & Functional Indispensability as Drivers of Post-Integration Identification

Organizational behavior research on organizational integrations, such as mergers and joint ventures, strongly focuses on the negative effects of organizational change. The change brought about by integrations is seen as disruptive for employees’ sense of continuity, which in turn negatively affects identification with the integrated organization. While scarce, a number of recent studies contrast this pessimistic view of organizational change by highlighting that integration-induced change can be perceived as an opportunity for growth. Building on this reasoning, we argue that a low sense of continuity can be associated with stronger post-integration identification, because it signifies the realization of opportunity-related change. Furthermore, we introduce functional indispensability as a driver of post-integration identification, which is particularly effective when organizational change is seen as an opportunity. Specifically, we hypothesized that soldiers who perceive that the integration partners can complement each other and who feel that they therefore can make an indispensable contribution to the integrated organization, identify more strongly with this organization. A field study among 489 soldiers of a newly integrated bi-national military unit is presented to support our hypotheses.