The relationship between the trust, hope, and normative and continuance commitment of merger survivors

Purpose – To determine the nature of the relationship between merger survivors' trust, hope, and normative and continuance commitment. Design/methodology/approach – Correlation and multiple regression studies. Findings – The results indicate a statistically significant relationship between merger survivors' trust, hope, and normative commitment. The results of a correlation study indicate no significant relationship between merger survivors' trust, hope, and continuance commitment. Research limitations/implications – One limitation evolved from the scales used to measure the relationship between the study's constructs. The scales were not isolated to measure particular aspects of merger survivors' trust, hope, nor normative and continuance organizational commitment. Also, debate exists regarding the proper time to evaluate mergers survivors' perceptions regarding the merger. Practical implications – Trust in management can reduce perceptions of threat and harm, and facilitate constructive, goal‐determined, survivor responses. Hope can enhance merger survivors' sense that they could cope with the merger. In turn, high levels of hope produced more active responses to the merger. Active and constructive survivor responses can produce positive commitment toward the organization. Conversely, a lack of trust in management can increase perceptions of threat and harm in merger survivors. The lack of trust in certain merger survivors can facilitate destructive responses, where the merger survivors' focus is on goals outside the organization. Originality/value – No systematic attempts to understand the relationship among the constructs has been identified.