Making Mergers Work: The Strategic Importance of People.

• Author: Marshall, Jeffrey
• Position: Bookshelf

Jeffrey A. Schmidt. Towers Perrin/Society for Human Resources Management, 302 pages.

Making Mergers Work opens with a series of charts and tables drawn from research by well-known research and consulting firm Towers Perrin, where the editor, Jeffrey Schmidt, is a managing director. As the charts quickly make clear, there are major differences between successful and unsuccessful mergers -- and similar differences in attitudes, synergies and the ability to overcome obstacles between companies that succeeded and those who didn't.

In a series of chapters penned by different writers, the book explores traditional and "new" perspectives on M&A, including such core disciplines as due diligence, integration planning and implementation. But a fundamental tenet throughout is the notion that people are the key to making a...