As a result of implementing the current government's plan for advancing public institutions, 36 public institutions have been merged into 16 organizations. Although the amalgamations of a slew of public institutions may appear complete, whether or not the performance of the entire public sector can be successfully improved through the organic integration of organizations still remains to be seen. However, the mergers, which have been accelerated by the government or by decisions made externally regardless of the opinions of the lower echelons of organizations, have resulted in an increase in the stress levels of the members of the merged organizations. For this reason, there is a need to make a greater effort to boost the job satisfaction levels of employees.
This study aims to analyze the impact of organizational restructuring and mergers on job satisfaction and job stress, with the ultimate goal of laying the foundations for effective human resources management and the creation of a harmonious corporate culture. The points in time before and after the mergers were set as independent variables, and two characteristic factors - job satisfaction (external factors, internal factors) and job stress (work factors, human relationship factors, organizational factors) - were set as dependent variables. To conduct an empirical analysis, 140 former employees of three different public institutions that had been amalgamated in accordance with the public institutions advancement plan at around the same time were interviewed and polled. SPSS, a statistical analysis program, was used for the empirical analysis. The validity and reliability of measured variables was analyzed, demographic factors were also analyzed using descriptive statistics, and the hypotheses were verified through a t-test in order to empirically analyze the statistical significance of the correlations between the variables.
Based on the results of the analyses, the following conclusions could be drawn:
First, the results of analyzing the impact of the mergers on job satisfaction were mostly negative(-). Promotions and rewards, colleagues and supervisors, welfare and benefits, wages showed significant relations among the external factors, whereas a sense of achievement at work, loyalties, conviviality, and responsibility were analyzed to be negatively(-) affected among the internal factors. This means that there is a need for the overall management of promotions and rewards, human relations, a sense of achievement at work, given that the mergers have dented overall job satisfaction.
Second, it transpired that the mergers had a positive(+) impact on changes in work conditions, work overload, human relations, and organizational factors affecting job stress. The human relations factor showed the highest stress level, whereas the work overload factor showed the lowest stress level. The widest fluctuations in the stress levels of the human relations factor might have been caused by the seeming inconvenience in exchanges, dialogues, and information sharing between the two institution's employees as a consequence of the mergers.
Third, the employees of merged organizations all put bilateral agreements on wages at the top of their list of concerns before and after the mergers. It can therefore be considered that any failure to reach a consensus on wages between the merged organizations might have a serious impact on employee job satisfaction and job stress in the wake of the merger.
Fourth, demographic factors, such as sex, age, academic background, length of service, job titles, employment types, job positions, and so on, had nothing to do with the differences in the employees' perception on job satisfaction and job stress. Implementing an integrated plan that can cover the entire organizational hierarchy is likely to be more effective than separately dealing with each hierarchical layer.
In conclusion, given that the overall satisfaction levels of the employees of merged organizations are generally low, there is a need to come up with solutions to boost their morale. Organizational restructuring and mergers must be performed in parallel with the management of factors affecting job satisfaction and job stress. The information on merger processes must be disclosed in a transparent fashion in order to create smooth communication systems for sharing accurate information. In addition, contentious issues having a huge impact on job stress, such as wages, must be addressed in advance through early agreement among stakeholders in order to improve employee job satisfaction levels. Sustained efforts should be put into consolidating merged organizations in a harmonious fashion by improving corporate culture, encouraging exchanges between two institutions, etc.
Melding the findings of this study into a general setting was constrained by a lack of confidence in the answers of those polled and the different characteristics of merged organizations. In addition, it is thought that further comparative studies targeted at merged institutions need to be carried out in the future after verifying a greater number of independent variables and deriving more detailed factors.