Crises of identity in the post-crisis world: towards multiple organizational identities after M&As

The global financial crisis has dramatically encouraged, if not forced, many organization to seek survival solutions through Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A). This paper deals with the subject of the organizational identity in organizations that experienced and M&A operation. In particular, the paper aims to describe how the sensemaking process leads companies to maintain multiple identities, even after the integration process seem to be operationalized. Many studies provided explanation of how the evolution of organizational identity reduces ambiguity due to multiple identities in order to identify a new common identity. Before the crisis, the achievement of a new post-M&A has traditionally considered a paramount goal, while the companies could have planned their change management actions in the medium range. This paper presents a grounded study on an acquisition in pharmaceutical market, arguing that the choice of maintaining multiple identities can even be appropriate and not necessarily despicable. The paper concludes by stating that a balanced effort of sources of singularity and plurality in identities describes the building process of a new, multiple, identity.