The Story of Mergers and Acquisitions: Using Narrative Theory to Understand the Uncertainty of Organizational Change

This paper examines the influence of communication form on employee uncertainty during mergers and acquisitions (M&As). Specifically, the author uses narrative theory to analyze how narrative organizational communication affects the three components of uncertainty – decreased predictive, explanatory, and descriptive ability. It is hypothesized that employees whose organizations use narrative M&A communication will have greater predictive, explanatory, and descriptive abilities than employees of organizations using non-narrative M&A communication. This paper contributes to the stream of research examining uncertainty during mergers and acquisitions and argues that narratives are an effective means of managing uncertainty in the mergers and acquisitions context. Keywords— Narrative Theory, Mergers and Acquisitions, Employee Uncertainty.