Moving Back in with the Parents: Navigating Culture and Identity Change

Abstract: The main purpose of this paper is to contribute to a deeper understanding of the (re)integration of startup into the parent organization and its effect on the organizational members, organizational culture, and identity which adds to the overall topic of mergers and acquisitions. Following an interpretive and abductive research approach allowed us to switch between theory and empirical material. Our thesis is based on 25 semi-structured interviews with employees from different departments and various hierarchal levels. In our theoretical framework, we outline previous research on organizational culture, identity, and mergers and acquisitions. Our empirical findings suggest that organizational members are one of the most important factors in the outcome of a (re)integration process. Despite of struggles, the employees in our case managed to focus on the positive and helped to build the new organizational culture and identity.