Psychosocial workload factors in mergers and acquisitions
Puranen, Paavo (2025)
2025
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Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2025121335940
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2025121335940
Tiivistelmä
This thesis collects information on psychosocial factors and models that can mitigate these factors that have an effect during mergers and acquisitions. This thesis was commissioned by a medium-sized ICT company that operates in the Nordic countries. In recent years this company has grown partly by acquisitions and wishes to improve the integration of companies to its’ operations.
This thesis aims to find out if Occupational Health and Safety Finland’s questionnaire for Occupational Health and Safety inspectors could be used to plan and implement the integration phase of an ICT company to a larger company. Current questionnaire is worded in negative fashion but positive factors that improve wellbeing in work can be discovered with questionnaire.
The knowledge base of this thesis uses method to assess psychosocial workload factors for occupational health and safety inspectors. This questionnaire is tested to find both positive and negative factors. Factors that aren’t found in this questionnaire are reflected to other models of psychosocial factors and these models are used to categorize different factors.
Method used in this thesis are interviews of employees who have worked in a similar company and have experienced a merger or an acquisition to a larger company. Interviewees were discovered by snowball sampling. Findings from these interviews were factored to OSHA Finland questionnaire factors. If corresponding factors were missing, other models were used.
The key results show that OSHA Finland questionnaire proves to be beneficial when used in planning and during of the integration phase of a merger and acquisition. Also using other models will benefit the work on mitigating or enabling the effects of psychosocial factors. However, this questionnaire is not sufficient alone to discover all factors that influence workload. Tool that is worded only in negative manner can make the positive psychosocial factors more difficult to find.
This thesis aims to find out if Occupational Health and Safety Finland’s questionnaire for Occupational Health and Safety inspectors could be used to plan and implement the integration phase of an ICT company to a larger company. Current questionnaire is worded in negative fashion but positive factors that improve wellbeing in work can be discovered with questionnaire.
The knowledge base of this thesis uses method to assess psychosocial workload factors for occupational health and safety inspectors. This questionnaire is tested to find both positive and negative factors. Factors that aren’t found in this questionnaire are reflected to other models of psychosocial factors and these models are used to categorize different factors.
Method used in this thesis are interviews of employees who have worked in a similar company and have experienced a merger or an acquisition to a larger company. Interviewees were discovered by snowball sampling. Findings from these interviews were factored to OSHA Finland questionnaire factors. If corresponding factors were missing, other models were used.
The key results show that OSHA Finland questionnaire proves to be beneficial when used in planning and during of the integration phase of a merger and acquisition. Also using other models will benefit the work on mitigating or enabling the effects of psychosocial factors. However, this questionnaire is not sufficient alone to discover all factors that influence workload. Tool that is worded only in negative manner can make the positive psychosocial factors more difficult to find.