Birleşme ve satın almaların değişim yönetimi açısından incelenmesi: Bir banka örneği
Examination of mergers and acquisitions in terms of change management: A bank example
Yazar: BURAK PEKCAN
Danışman: PROF. DR. FATMA KÜSKÜ AKDOĞAN
İstanbul Teknik Üniversitesi / Lisansüstü Eğitim Enstitüsü / İşletme Mühendisliği Ana Bilim Dalı / İşletme Mühendisliği Bilim Dalı
Derece: Doktora, 2022
Konu: İşletme = Business Administration
Dizin: Banka birleşmeleri = Bank mergers ; Sosyokültürel bütünleşme = Socio-cultural integration ; Örgütsel değişim = Organizational change ; Örgütsel uyum = Organizational adaptation

Özet:
Örgütler, bir çevrede faaliyet gösteren, temelinde kar elde etme amacı ile kurulmuş fiziki ve beşeri unsurlardan meydana gelen sistemlerdir. Temelinde yaşamlarını sürdürme amacı güden örgütler için, içerisinde bulundukları çevre, bir yandan ihtiyaç duydukları kaynakları elde etmelerini sağlamakta, diğer yandan bir belirsizlik kaynağı yaratmaktadır.
Örgütler bir yandan içerisinde bulundukları çevrede güçlenmeye ve rekabetçi üstünlük elde etmeye çabalarken, bir yandan da çevrenin getirdiği belirsizlikleri ve tehlikeleri azaltmaya çalışırlar. Birleşme ve satın almalar, örgütlerin önemli kaynaklara erişebilmeleri, dış çevrede kendilerine rekabetçi üstünlük elde edebilmeleri ve yaşamlarını sürdürebilmeleri açısından önemli bir stratejik seçim unsuru olmaktadır. Kaynakların heterojen dağıldığı, faaliyet gösterilen çevre içerisinde rekabetin arttığı ve büyük ölçekli örgütlerin pazara giderek hâkim olduğu bir dış çevre içerisinde birleşme ve satın alma hamleleri örgütlere rekabetçi üstünlük sağlamaktadır. Birleşme ve satın almalarda hem satın alan hem de satın alınan örgütlerde çeşitli değişimler yaşanmakta, bu değişimler örgüt yapılarını da doğrudan etkilemektedir.
Bu araştırmada, bankacılık sektöründe faaliyet gösteren ve yurtdışı merkezli bir grup tarafından satın alınan bir firma incelenmiştir. Örgüt kuramları ve birleşme ve satın alma yazınından temellerini alan bu çalışmada, satın alım sonrasında örgütsel uyumun yapı, işleyiş ve kültürel boyutlarda sağlanması için gerçekleştirilen çalışmalar vaka araştırması yöntemi ile incelenmektedir. Açıklayıcı araştırma tasarımı kullanılan bu çalışmada veriler birincil (örgütün yönetiminde söz sahibi olan ve satın alım sonrası dönemi yaşamış olan kişiler ile yapılan görüşmeler ve gözlemler) ve ikincil (basılı doküman incelemeleri) veri kaynaklarından yararlanılarak toplanmıştır. Araştırma bulguları, Kaynak Bağımlılığı Kuramı ve Birleşme ve Satın Alma yazını çerçevesinde değerlendirilmiştir.
Birleşme ve Satın almalar, beraberinde uyum sağlama gerekliliğini de getirmektedir. Örgütlerin yapılarında, işleyişlerinde ve kültüründe (insan kaynaklarında) çeşitli değişimlere yol açmaktadır. Ancak bu değişimin yoğunluğu, örgütün tüm birimlerinde aynı olmadığı gibi, aynı zaman diliminde de gerçekleşmeyebilmektedir. Değişimin örgütün yapı, işleyiş ve kültürel unsurlarında ne derece gerçekleşeceği yine örgütün bu unsurlarda ne derece yapılanmış ve kuvvetli olduğuyla ters orantılı olduğu kadar, satın alan kuruluşun da bu unsurları değiştirme isteği ile doğru orantılı olmaktadır.
Birleşme ve satın alma sonrası entegrasyon sürecinin başarılı bir şekilde gerçekleştirilebilmesi için, görevlerin ve kültürlerin benzer derecede uyumlaştırılması önemli olmaktadır. Araştırılan vakada da iki örgütün görev ve kültürlerinin uyumlaştırılabilmesi için görev entegrasyonu ve kültürel entegrasyon yöntemlerinin birlikte kullanıldığı görülmektedir. Bunun bir sonucu olarak da örgüt yapıları ve işleyiş şekilleri birbirine yakınlaşmış, ayrıca insan kaynakları yönetimi uygulamaları da benzer hale gelmiştir.
Örgütsel değişimin gerçekleşebilmesi ve uyumun sağlanabilmesi için uygulanan uyum mekanizmalarının uygulanış biçimleri de değişebilmektedir. Yapısal uyumun sağlanması için uygulanan uyum mekanizmalarının, çoğunlukla yazında da değinilen yöntemler ile gerçekleştirildiği görülmektedir. Bununla birlikte, örgütsel uyumun gerçekleştirilebilmesi için uygulanan insan kaynakları ve görev entegrasyonu mekanizmalarının uygulanış biçimlerinin, bu vakada yazında aktarıldığı biçiminden bir miktar farklılaştığı görülmektedir.

Abstract:
Organizations are systems that operate in an environment and consist of physical and human elements established with the aim of making profits. For organizations that basically aim to survive, the environment in which they live enables them to obtain the resources they need, on the other hand, creates a source of uncertainty for them.
While organizations try to gain strength and competitive advantage in their environment, they also try to reduce the uncertainties and dangers brought by the environment. Mergers and acquisitions are an important element of strategic choice in terms of accessing important resources, gaining competitive advantage in the external environment and sustaining their lives. In an external environment where resources are heterogeneously distributed, competition within the operating environment increases and large-scale organizations increasingly dominate the market, merger and acquisition moves provide competitive advantage to organizations. 
One of the most important sources of external growth are mergers and acquisitions. Mergers and acquisitions are favorite top growth strategies employed by multinationals and large national organizations in a changing global market environment. Acquisitions have the unique potential to transform companies and contribute to corporate growth and renewal. After 1990s, due to the rapid developments in information and communication technologies, the reduction of legal barriers, and the globalization trend that encourages efficiency, productivity and growth, there has been a rapid increase in mergers and acquisitions. With the expectation of greater efficiency and effectiveness, mergers and acquisitions have moved to cross-border countries. While cross-border mergers facilitate access to cost-effective resources (labor force, raw materials, technology, etc.) in different countries, they also offered the opportunity to further increase market share. The banking sector, which is the center of the financial system, has also been affected by this rush of change that has taken place in the last two decades. Cross-border bank mergers have become widespread in the sector.
Mergers and acquisitions are among the organizational growth strategies that have been seen frequently in recent years, in the Turkish banking sector as well as in the world. The Turkish banking sector was significantly affected by the 2000 and 2001 economic crises. Due to the profound effects of these two crises, the "Banking Sector Restructuring Program" was put into practice in 2001, trying to eliminate the problems of the sector and to increase its resilience in the face of possible crises. In this process, some of the banks were merged, some of them were sold to other banks, some of them were liquidated by the Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency. The restructuring program also paved the way for cross-border acquisitions and foreign banks started to invest in the banking sector in Turkey. In this period, some foreign investors intended to buy Turkish banks, to establish partnerships with them, and some foreign banks to merge with Turkish banks. After the global economic crisis of 2008, the foreign banks' interest for merger and acquisition deals within the Turkish Banking sector continued with an increasing momentum. The regulations in the banking system, strong capital adequacy ratios of the banks and high ratios of non-banked population enabled this interest of foreign investors.
As a result of mergers and acquisitions, various changes happen in both the acquirer and acquired, and these changes directly affect organizational structures, functions and human resources of the organizations. Studies covering post-merger and post-acquisition integration gained strength towards the end of the 1980s and later found a wide research area. Many studies have been conducted on different aspects of integration in mergers and acquisitions, but studies on the integration mechanisms and their implementation in the organizational change process have been relatively limited. In order for the merger and acquisition processes to be realized in a way that will reach the expected goals, researchers have proposed different mechanisms such as increasing the communication, socio-cultural education, benefit from expats, identity building campaigns, joint organizational activities such as cultural awareness seminars, joint informal activities after working hours and human resource integration opportunities such as informal interaction opportunities in the workplace. In fact, in a sense, it is tried to facilitate the realization of cultural harmony, that is, the realization of spiritual unification as well as physical union with the suggestions mentioned.
However, organizational change caused by the merger and acquisition process is a holistic process that affects and is affected by all organizational structure, employees, business processes, monitoring and control mechanisms. Therefore, instead of focusing only on a single integration mechanism, it would be meaningful to simultaneously look at all the factors contributing to the merger and post-acquisition integration process of businesses in order to be successful. Therefore, in this study, both task and human resources-oriented integration, which has important effects on the success of the merger and acquisition process, are examined together.
In this research, a company operating in the banking sector and purchased by a foreign-based group was examined. In this study, which is based on organizational theories, organizational management and merger and acquisition literature, the studies carried out to ensure organizational harmony in the structure, functioning and cultural dimensions after the acquisition are examined with the qualitative case study method. 
The case study method is one of the most important and accessible qualitative research methods, which has become increasingly important in different disciplines such as medical sciences, sociology, politics, law, management and engineering over time (Reddy, 2015). In case research, it is a method to be used when the researcher seeks answers to "why" and "how" questions (Eisenhardt, 1989, Eisenhardt & Graebner, 2007), but when he has no control over the events or if he has the opportunity to research the event in real time. According to Yin (2003), the case study method is a research strategy used especially when the link between the event and the content is not completely separated from each other. It is an experimental research that investigates a current phenomenon in a real-life context. A case study question looks for more than one piece of evidence, considering that the data needs triangulation to be validated. It makes use of previous theoretical suggestions for data collection and analysis. In other words, it is the study of a specific phenomenon such as a program, an event, a person, a process, an institution or a social group (Willis, 2007). Moreover, qualitative research methods are a legitimate tool of idiographic research approaches that use different information to try to explain a more limited phenomenon (Yin, 2003).
Beginning with a literature review, an explanatory research design is applied. Data were collected using primary (interviews and observations with people responsible for the management of the organization and who lived in the post-purchase period) and secondary (printed document reviews) data sources. In addition, the researcher's observations on the post merger integration phase are also used as a complementary data source, who worked in the acquired organization and who had the chance to observe the main integration mechanisms and the main changes that took place on the acquired company during the alignment period. The research findings were evaluated within the framework of Resource Dependence Theory, organizational management and M&A literature.
After the realization of mergers and acquisitions, they also bring with them the need to adapt to the new environment, new shareholder, new regulatory environment and new requirements. It leads to various changes in the structures, functioning and culture (human resources) of organizations. However, the intensity of this change may not be the same in all units or functions of the organization and may not occur in the same time period. The extent to which the change will take place in the structure, functioning and cultural elements of the organization is inversely proportional to the extent to which the organization is structured and strong in these elements, as well as the desire of the acquirer organization to apply the change on these elements.
A similar degree of harmonization of tasks and cultures is essential for the successful realization of the post merger and acquisition integration process. In the examined case, it is seen that task integration and cultural integration methods are used together in order to harmonize the duties and cultures of the two organizations. Following the acquisition, various integration mechanisms are applied to align the structure, processes and human resources of both companies. In some aspects it was found in-depth integration and alignment, whereas some areas remain less changed or even unchanged. Also, it was observed that the application of mechanisms aimed for organizational alignment may differ from the already mentioned methods in the Post-Merger Integration literature.
In order for organizational change to take place and to ensure harmony, the way in which adaptation mechanisms are implemented can also change. It is seen that the adaptation mechanisms applied to ensure structural harmony are mostly carried out with the methods mentioned in the literature. However, it is determined that the ways in which the human resources and task integration mechanisms applied in order to achieve organizational cohesion differ somewhat from the way it is mentioned in the literature in this case. Human integration mechanisms, which are defined as soft methods of organizational post merger integration, may also be applied in a harder way. Also, task integration mechanisms may vary according to the acquired company's local strength, its place in the market and its functions.
Research results show that task integration mechanisms by themselves are not sufficient in the process of adaptation to post-acquisition integration. Human and culture factors are at least as important as the first one on post-acquisition integration success. In the case examined, it is seen that various mechanisms were applied under both integration strategies within the acquired organization, and some additional mechanisms not mentioned directly in the literature.