Merging Cultures: Organizational Behavior, Leadership, and Differentiation in a Health System Merger
Degree Name
EdD (Doctor of Education)
Program
Educational Leadership
Date of Award
8-2017
Committee Chair or Co-Chairs
Bethany Flora
Committee Members
James Lampley, Brian Noland, Stephanie Tweed
Abstract
Health system mergers and acquisitions (M&As) have increased exponentially in recent years as a result of the Affordable Care Act (Brown, Werling, Walker, Burgdorfer & Shields, 2012). M&As are consummated as a way to control for interdependencies within the market, control costs and leverage debt, and negotiate better rates among health insurers (Bolman & Deal, 2013; Cooper & Finkelstein, 2010; Mirc, 2013). Regardless of the impetus for a merger, the largest predictor of the success or failure of a M&A lies within the organizational culture (Brown, et al., 2012; Cooper & Finkelstein, 2010; Kastor, 2010; Ovseiko, Melham, Fowler & Buchan, 2015). The purpose of this research was to assess the organizational culture of two competing health organizations prior to a planned merger and understand whether there were significant differences in pre-merger culture compared to a post-merger preferred organizational culture using the Competing Values Framework (CVF). The population included all employees of both health systems with the survey respondent sample stratified by the following employee types: (Tier 1), entry-level employee; (Tier 2), supervisory level, and, (Tier 3), executive level. Statistical procedures included independent t tests, one-way and two-way analyses of variance.
Findings indicated a statistically significant difference existed between the current cultures of the health systems prior to the merger; however, both systems sets of employees preferred a post-merger organizational culture that was not statistically different from each other. Further, there were significant differences in the cultural perceptions of Tier 1 employees and Tier 2 employees and no significant differences between Tier 3 employee perceptions of culture as compared to Tier 1 or Tier 2.
Document Type
Dissertation - unrestricted
Recommended Citation
Chesley, Colin G., "Merging Cultures: Organizational Behavior, Leadership, and Differentiation in a Health System Merger" (2017). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. Paper 3271. https://dc.etsu.edu/etd/3271
Copyright
Copyright by the authors.
Included in
Health Services Administration Commons, Leadership Studies Commons, Organizational Behavior and Theory Commons