Employing critical incident technique as one way to display the hidden aspects of post-merger integration

•Furthers understanding of the sociocultural aspects of PMI in CBAs.•Examines emotion and perception during PMI from a novel critical incident perspective.•Twenty-two grounded critical incidents were generated from managers who were experts in cross-border M&As.•Positive perceptions emerged; managers generalized on their merger experiences.•Managerial implication: enhancing positive perception leads to successful integration.

This paper explores perceptions of job changes and cross-cultural interactions in a multicultural team resulting from a cross-border merger and acquisition (M&A). It is based on a grounded qualitative study interviewing and debriefing nine managers who are experts in cross-border acquisitions (CBA). The purpose of this work is to demonstrate the relevance of Critical Incident Methodology to accessing managerial perceptions, emotions, and stress in a post-merger integration (PMI) stage. Critical incident technique (CIT) is examined from a novel perspective to capture uncovered contextual conditions of PMI and show its relevance to studying soft factors of CBA. The paper explains how CIT can be used to gain greater understanding and to reveal the “hidden” aspects of M&A systematically. Interview results are described: 22 critical incidents have been developed. Employing CIT, the conclusions focus on the insights gained from the counter-intuitive positive emotional reactions of managers to cross-border M&As.