Transrx Acquires MEDS4PETS -- Whither

TransRx Acquires Meds4Pets -- Whither KM?

The acquisition of Meds4Pets raises several issues which need to be addressed. For once, the issues refer to the organizational culture and the structure issues associated. From this standpoint, there is the necessity to integrate the culturally diverse firms and to organize them under the same umbrella of a single culture. Currently, the situation reveals a context of organizational fears and dissatisfactions due to elements such as the public problems of Chinese companies manufacturing pet foods. The employees in the two firms view each other with reticence and in order to retrieve, success, this threat and internal friction needs to be eliminated.

Additionally, it is also necessary to address the structure issues. From this standpoint, it is expected that at least one half of the employees in Meds4Pets be let go. The situation raises sustained dissatisfactions and concerns with the staff members group, but it also raises cost efficiency dilemmas. In this order of ideas, while it would be ideal for all the current employees to be maintained, an acquisition process makes this desire impossible to implement.

A second set of issues is raised by the leadership of the new company. This particular necessity reveals the importance of both management to integrate the functional elements, but also leadership to motivate the change integration and adaptation process and to stimulate employee participation and acceptance of the new situation. Finally, the third set of concerns refers to the knowledge worker issues. This problem is complex and revolves around the necessity to identify and retain the most valuable employees.

In order to resolve these three specific sets of problems, the following recommendations are made:

1.a. The creation and enforcement of an organizational setting which embraces and cherishes cultural diversity. The success of an organization, even more so of one which has currently been extended through the acquisition of a foreign owned one, is impossible without the integration of the cultural elements (Hoowetzki, 2002).

1.b. The thorough internal audit of the company and the identification of the vital employees to be maintained. In order to reduce the dissatisfactions of the staff, support in the offering of new positions for the downsized staff should be offered.

2. Leadership should be separated from management and it should be enforced as the process by which people continually learn and develop themselves (Fullan, 2002). In other words, the change process should be constructed around the principles of transformational leadership.

3. The recommendation is a dual one -- the internal audit to identify the most knowledgeable employees and the implementation of a managerial style to foster employee knowledge endeavors (Alter, 2005).