Yvonne Kaiser 
Managing corporate identity in post merger integration [PDF ebook] 

Master’s Thesis from the year 2003 in the subject Business economics – Business Management, Corporate Governance, grade: 1, 0 (A), University of Applied Sciences Ludwigshafen (IMC-MBA), language: English, abstract: When corporations are merging a tendency towards standardisation of organisations,
processes and systems arises. Mergers of companies also lead to a concentration
of increasingly larger trusts and holdings. Still the corporation is supposed to
remain unmistakable and unique in order to preserve its attractiveness for customers,
employees, suppliers, investors, in short, for a network of stakeholders. Only corporate
identity (CI) has the efficiency range required to address and reach all these groups
whose needs have to be considered.
This present work examines the concept of corporate identity, its application in
the corporate environment, and the opportunities for the targeted and strategic steering
under the background of mergers and acquisitions. The goal is to develop a concept
and an approach how to start working on corporate identity and to set interventions
during the postmerger process to support a successful integration.
For the reasons of the different meanings and the different understanding of
the terms ‘Corporate Identity’ and ‘Mergers & Acquisitions’ (M&A) the present work develops
both a structural model for the analysis of the individual components of corporate
identity and a phase model for the configuration of integration. Based on this
analysis the contexts of effects between and the opportunities for influencing the individual
dimensions of CI are proven within the scope of postmerger integration (PMI),
and instruments for the targeted impact and steering are represented. The validity of
the elaborated approach of CI management within the framework of PMI is examined
within the frame of two case studies of the two largest telecommunication companies
presently operating in Germany. Activities are deducted from the results of the secondary
analysis and from the empirical studies and are summarised in terms of a CIoriented
model of procedure for postmerger integration optimised for success.