Lungile Ntsizwane, Yvonne du Plessis
Abstract
This study explored communication management as a factor influencing the integration of administrative systems and processes in a merged higher education institution. The integration of administrative systems and processes becomes daunting when the merged institution has multiple campuses in dispersed locations with different cultures. Mergers often focus on significant structural changes and overlook integration aspects such as administrative systems and processes leading to misalignments and operational chaos. This research pursued a single qualitative case study approach with data collected through semi-structured in-depth interviews. conducted with a sample. The participants for this research were senior administrative employees selected through stratified purposive sampling.
The findings revealed that the lack of integration management is associated with neglecting multilevel managerial communication, as experienced by administrative staff. Therefore, the lack of communication management during the merger process is viewed as a major factor that negatively influences the post-merger integration. If communication is lacking or misaligned on all levels of management, it creates chaos and failure on multiple levels of administration with subsequent merger failure. This paper recommends that HEIs management must give special attention to integration management and communication management as critical merger success factors to ensure administrative systems and processes integration within the three merger phases, i.e., pre-merge, merger implementation, and post-merger.