Managing change: strategy or serendipity—reflections from the merger of Astra and Zeneca

Abstract

This paper examines management practices and perception related to different change projects at AstraZeneca over a period of five years. The main reason for conducting this study was to gain further insight and knowledge concerning aspects of managing change at large pharmaceutical organisations. The empirical data herein is based on interviews with managers at AstraZeneca R&D with regard to aspects of management involvement in different change projects focusing on the merger of Astra and Zeneca. Findings indicate that the merger constitutes a good example of having two change strategies, theories E (programmatic, top down) and O (organisational driven, decentralized) in parallel, but on different organisational levels and in different parts of the change process. The results indicate that this mixture was not a predefined strategy, but a consequence of the different cultures at Astra and Zeneca. To deal with this dilemma, this study suggests that a common and shared language for communicating change strategies is an important factor that might not just increase understanding and acceptance of change processes, but also increase the efficiency of change. The implications of the findings are discussed.

Keywords:

• Change management
• theory E & theory O
• merger
• pharmeceutical R&D
• AstraZeneca