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This paper aims to investigate the effect of transformational leadership (TL), behavioral integration of top management team (TMT) and team conflict on manager ambidexterity behavior.

Hierarchical linear modeling has been applied to test the degree of influence of TL and behavioral integration of TMT on manager ambidexterity using data collected from 60 chief executive officers (CEOs) and 322 TMT members of small- and medium-sized enterprises in the Chinese electronic commerce industry.

The results suggest the following: transformational leadership is positively associated with the behavioral integration of TMT and a high level of TMT behavioral integration strengthens the positive relationship between transformational leadership and manager ambidexterity. Also, team conflict moderates the mediating role of TMT behavioral integration in the relationship of transformational leadership to manager ambidexterity.

First, this study does not directly test whether transformational leadership encourages a focus on manager ambidexterity, although the results on behavioral integration draw attention to the usefulness of such leadership. Second, in focusing on manager ambidexterity, this paper omits key variables, especially skills and abilities.

Given that several aspects of leadership can be learned and adjusted, the findings suggest that organizations can improve their individual ambidexterity by helping the CEOs develop and display transformational leadership through training and mentoring. TMTs were found to rely mostly on the behavioral integration approach (collaborative behavior, quality of information exchange and joint decision-making) and team conflict management. Such reliance, in turn, predicts effective team behavioral coordination and subsequent manager ambidexterity.

First, this study goes beyond the current research that focuses primarily on ambidexterity at the inter-organizational alliance, firm and business unit levels. This earlier research lacks a conceptually and empirically validated understanding of ambidexterity at the level of the manager. In contrast, by investigating and examining the antecedents of manager ambidexterity behavior, the study develops an individual perspective to elucidate the ambidextrous mechanisms. Second, the study also contributes by explaining how transformational leadership relates to manager ambidexterity. To date, only limited research has disentangled how transformational leaders enhance managers’ teamwork (e.g. behavioral integration) and how such leaders affect the ambidextrous orientation of managers.

Drawing on social exchange theory, social capital theory, and perspectives of political influence in organizations, this study develops and tests a model in which managerial political skill is associated with internal, supplier and customer supply chain integration through two mediating mechanisms: facilitating a supply chain orientation and mitigating self-serving politics.

Data were collected from three independent samples, one for each achieved state of integration (i.e. internal, customer and supplier) (n_internal = 225; n_customer = 225; n_supplier = 225; N = 675). Hypotheses were tested with structural equation modeling and indirect effects analysis. The potential impact of unmeasured endogenous factors was mitigated through appropriate survey design, statistical control, marker variable analysis and instrument variable usage.

Managerial political skill exhibited a positive, direct relationship with achieved internal and supplier integration. Supply chain orientation partially mediated the relationship for achieving integration with both customers and suppliers. Self-serving organizational politics was not associated with achieving internal, customer or supplier integration.

By demonstrating the importance of political influence in achieving supply chain integration, the findings support the role of managerial social capital in the underlying social exchange processes that drive integration.

Despite the fundamental role of informal, social dynamics in supply chain integration, past research has largely focused on either the technical prowess of middle managers or the political skill of executives in supporting integration. The present study explicates the critical role of middle management political skill in actually achieving supply chain integration.

Despite the indeterminate economic outcomes of vertical integration, several managers and researchers have questioned its viability. The article proposes that a better understanding of the relationship between vertical integration and economic performance may be made by considering the role of managerial capabilities in directing integration. It is argued that a lack of understanding of non‐core businesses and the managerial approach necessary for managing integrated activities contributes to poor integration outcomes. The magnitude of these knowledge deficiencies will be dependent on how far the company moves from its strategic core and on whether corporate managers can abate these deficiencies through knowledge acquisition. Through synthesis of the complex vertical integration literature, a managerial capability framework presents the issues and environmental contingencies involved in the success of the vertical integration effort.

There is little published research on the role of middle managers in the delivery of health and social care integration. Middle managers are critical to change management and require the skills to do this effectively. This study aims to explore what middle managers perceived as helping and hindering them in the delivery of change in one high‐profile integration project.

The study involved semi‐structured interviews of eight middle managers across health and social care organisations using a grounded theory approach.

Middle managers possessed good project management and staff engagement skills and understood the challenges of integration. Time and capacity, changes in senior leadership and lack of role clarity were significant hindrances. There were indications that informal networks had allowed them to progress the project.

This is a small‐scale study limited to one project. Although findings are supported by other published evidence, they may not be transferable to other settings.

Middle managers appear to possess change skills but lack understanding of how to apply them in complex environments. Dedicated time and awareness of complexity and leadership models may help middle managers to lead change within integration projects.

This study provides rich information about how middle managers perceive their roles as change agents within integrated working.

The purpose of this paper is to report a study of post-integration mechanisms carried out by five multinational mergers and acquisitions (M & A) transactions taken place in Indian context. This study has been woven around the concept of human integration and task integration as separate objectives of acquiring organizations to be achieved.

This study is based on descriptive research design. Qualitative data were collected, where the managers from the acquiring organizations and employees from the acquired firms have taken part in the data collection process through interviews. Interview schedule was developed for managers consisting questions on organizations’ strategy to achieve success post-M & A integration (PMI), while interview schedule developed for employees investigated their reactions after organizational change.

Results revealed that the organizations where human integration mechanisms were given due credence also harbored highly committed employees from their organizational counterparts, whereas the transactions where task integration objective was given preference while ignoring human integration, employees developed the negative emotions of anger and insecurity for their newly merged firm.

The M & A literature observes a huge gap in the field of M & As in India, especially in PMI mechanisms worldwide, as the emphasis has always been on financial and operational aspects of M & As. Thus, this study addresses this gap in research and opens the avenues for M & A researchers to consider HR as the strategic partner during M & As.

The study has important implications for MNCs operating in India and for those which want to excel the Indian market through M & A.

This paper is based on the original field work and every information given is authentic.

Studies show the benefits of supplier integration, yet negative attitudes toward supplier integration exist that research fails to explain. The purpose of this paper is to investigate managerial attitudes toward supplier integration and how intra-firm processes and culture affect the formation of such attitudes. In particular, the paper aims to examine the differing influences between the USA and China.

Using multi-group structural equation modeling, the authors re-analyzed the data collected by Nahm et al. (2004) and Li et al. (2014) comprised of responses from 224 US and 117 Chinese manufacturing managers.

The study finds that managerial attitudes toward supplier integration depend on the degree to which a collaborative organizational culture and synchronous manufacturing practices exist within a firm. Moreover, in the Chinese context, the influence of a collaborative organizational culture is lower than the influence of synchronous manufacturing practices. The opposite is found in the US context.

The results suggest that overcoming negative attitudes of supplier integration requires more than simply espousing the benefits of supplier integration; looking deeper into an organization’s internal characteristics and situational context is required. In particular, if the country context already emphasizes the collaborative culture, the organization should focus on synchronous manufacturing practices in order to form a positive attitude toward supplier integration.

This paper is the first to examine how managerial attitudes toward supplier integration are formed. The work is novel because the authors suggest that the formation of managerial attitudes toward supplier integration inter-firm management can be affected by intra-firm management in the minds of managers, which are influenced by country contexts.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how the practice of program management can be used to manage strategically‐oriented initiatives such as mergers and acquisitions (M&As).

The methodology applied is high‐level reflective retrospective qualitative field research conducted by a practitioner‐scholar in response to the research question: How does the program management approach applied to a small‐scale acquisition compare to the current joint bodies of program management and M&A theory and practice?

The practice of program management provides a means for managing strategically oriented initiatives such as small‐scale acquisitions.

This paper is constrained by a high‐level literature review of English language publications only, and high‐level reflective retrospective qualitative field research conducted by a single practitioner‐scholar upon a single relatively small‐scale acquisition, which cannot necessarily be scaled up to be representative of a larger‐scale acquisition, nor given the differences between M&As be used as a direct template for other M&As. Also, as a purely qualitative field research study into an area of intermediate maturity, the response to the research question lacks statistical support.

M&As are increasing in frequency and yet continue to have relatively high‐failure rates. Based on the findings of this paper, the practice of program management provides a means of managing strategic initiatives such as acquisitions.

This paper adds to the bodies of program management and M&A literature, from the dual perspectives of practice and research, particularly with reference to small acquisitions and acquisitions in the small and medium enterprise sector.

New Public Management (NPM) has increased fragmentation in municipal health and social care organizations. In response, post-NPM reforms aim to enhance integration through service integration. Integration of municipal services is important for people with complex health and social challenges, such as concurrent substance abuse and mental health problems. This article explores the conditions for service integration in municipal health and social services by studying how public management values influence organizational and financial structures and professional practices.

This is a case study with three Norwegian municipalities as case organizations. The study draws on observations of interprofessional and interagency meetings and in-depth interviews with professionals and managers. The empirical field is municipal services for people with concurrent substance abuse and mental health challenges. The data were analyzed both inductively and deductively.

The study reveals that opportunities to assess, allocate and deliver integrated services were limited due to organizational and financial structures as the most important aim was to meet the financial goals. The authors also find that economic and frugal values in NPM doctrines impede service integration. Municipalities with integrative values in organizational and financial structures and in professional approaches have greater opportunities to succeed in integrating services.

Applying a public management value perspective, this study finds that the values on which organizational and financial structures and professional practices are based are decisive in enabling and constraining service integration.

Explores difficulties involved in business integration by providing data from an in‐depth scholarly consulting project. Focuses on the barriers that exist and emerge in the form of defensive actions and routines that tend to undermine existing core competencies as well as the formation of new core competencies. These individual and organizational barriers tend to inhibit the very kind of organizational learning critical for sustainable competitive advantage, i.e. the ability of an organization to double‐loop learn, and to reframe and reshape its competence in an evolving business environment. Argues that a kind of management development in action is required to help managers address the defensive routines in the organization or articulate and disseminate workable solutions they find in the midst of practice. This kind of management development helps practitioners to interpenetrate each others’ theories of practice and goes beyond the traditional stance of many organization and management developers to focus on “process”. Management development in action requires an integration of “process” and “content” and reframes the debate between these two positions by proposing an inquiring and designing stance towards causal reasoning in action.

We review our work as collaborators over nearly 40 years as researchers and OD practitioners on the human, cultural, and organizational aspects of mergers and acquisitions (M&A). This chapter addresses (1) how our thinking, research methods, and practices developed over time, (2) accounts of deriving theory from practice and contrariwise of applying theory to practical matters, (3) how our respective shifts from academe toward scholarly-practice influenced our thinking and how we write, and (4) varieties of scholarly collaboration – ranging from intensive interchange to sequential pitch and catch. Early work covers a study of a “white-knight” acquisition and then advising on post-merger integration in a hostile takeover, revealing the stages of a deal, dynamics of buyers and sellers, and human factors that produce the “merger syndrome.”

Throughout we talk about confronting challenges of the scholar-practitioner divide as it pertains to role definition and boundary management as well to our theorizing, writing, and publication agenda. The chapter concludes with reflections on doing applied research in collaboration with a colleague (and friend).