Abstract
Prolonged organisational change processes, like post-merger integrations (PMI) following mergers and acquisitions (M&A), can lead to unpredictable variations in people’s attitudes, behaviour, and performance. The self-regulatory resource (SRR) based model of self-regulation (SR) suggests that performance relies on the availability of resources and the allocation of partially depleted resources to different tasks. To gather data for a better understanding of attitude and performance variations during a PMI process, over 100 interviews were conducted in multiple rounds in four merged companies in a year-and-a-half-long empirical study. The preliminary results suggest that individuals’ psychological capital (PsyCap) level may be a key factor in the allocation of part-depleted SRR for a given task, and the level of PsyCap is highly influenced by the autobiographical emotional memories (AEMs) of individuals. These findings may contribute not only to theory development but also offer a practical toolset for managers during prolonged change processes.