När fler blir färre - En kvantitativ studie om sambandet mellan upplevelsen av delaktighet och gemensam identifiering i en sammanslagningsprocess

Sammanfattning: On July 1st 2013 a merger within the organization Malmö stad was implemented. This study aims to examine the consequences of this merger for the social identification of the employees of a human service agency within Malmö stad. A quantitative method was used to examine the hypothesis for this study, which is as follows: the more involved the employees perceive themselves to be during the merger process, the more likely it is that they will identify themselves socially with the new, merged, agency. A structured questionnaire was sent to all of the current employees in the agency, who have been employed since before 2011. This consisted of approximately 60 employees. In total, 20 questionnaires were sent back. The study examined to what extent the employees, during the merger process, had received timely information from the management about the merger, had been able to share their opinions about the merger, and to what extent they perceived they could make their voice heard. The study then examined to what extent the employees identified themselves socially with the new, merged agency, and to what extent they find that there is a community at the agency, after the merger. The correlation between perceived participation during the merger process and perceived social identification with the new agency was then analyzed. The result showed a negative correlation between these two variables, however, this was shown to be statistically insignificant. Thus, the more involved the employees perceived themselves to be during the merger process, the less they were able to identify themselves socially with the new agency, although this result was shown to be statistically insignificant. The hypothesis of the study was therefore not proven, and further study with a larger group is suggested.