Administrators and mergers: a study of administrators' perceptions

Health care mergers have become the organizational strategy of choice in the 20th century to contain costs and to survive economically. Several studies have been conducted on the economic impact of mergers on the organization and on the managerial staff of merged organizations. Areas where there has been limited research are in the realm of the impact of mergers on the employees, the industry, and the public. To address these areas, a study was conducted of the perceptions of health care administrators of both merged and non-merged organizations in the state of Florida. A primary finding of the study was that administrators of merged organizations held a higher opinion of the benefits of mergers in their organizations and in the industry than did administrators in non-merged organizations. An unanticipated finding of the impact of mergers was that the increased competition has created a wary, hostile environment for administrators, many of whom refused to participate in this study believing it was being conducted by their competition. The rationale for mergers in health care is based on the market value of competition and future research needs to focus more on the unintended consequences of competition in health care to which this study points.