Abstract
D.Cur.(Psychiatric Nursing Science)
One overarching research aim guided me in this research, namely to generate a worthy
Appreciative Merger & Acquisition (M&A) team coaching programme to facilitate managers’
mental health in the context of a cross-cultural M&A. The context represented a hotel in
Swaziland, which was situated in a Southern African hospitality environment. A variety of
stories reflecting the paradoxical, alienating nature of M&As impelled me to enter the
research context. At the same time, research and literature confirmed a preference for
organisational change strategies that depart from a deficit orientation. These change
strategies presuppose that something is broken in the organisational context, which needs to
be repaired. Inherent power-driven organisational change processes are often employed as a
strategy to try and repair the identified organisational brokenness.
It was, therefore, from a position of curiosity regarding the cross-cultural M&A experiences
of managers in the particular hospitality environment, as well as interest in positive
organisational change initiatives, that I have gone on this journey. Positive organisational
change initiatives celebrate the life-giving stories of organisational life. It departs from the
assumption that something in an organisation does work. On entry, I hoped that the context
would lend itself to implementing an existing M&A team coaching programme. Additionally,
that the stakeholders involved would allow the transfer of such a programme in order to
establish its worth while contributing to the advancement of theory in the field of business
coaching.
Two central research questions were asked. These questions related to the existence of an
M&A team coaching programme that lacked scientific credibility at the time, as well as
literature that confirmed the detrimental influence of mismanaged cross-cultural M&A
implementation processes driven from a deficit orientation on the mental health of managers.
• Can an M&A team coaching programme to facilitate managers’ mental health for
sustained performance be applied to a cross-cultural M&A in a Southern African
hospitality environment?
• If the programme is applicable, how can it be refined, implemented and valuated as a
foundation to generate a worthy Appreciative M&A team coaching programme to
facilitate managers’ mental health for sustained performance in a Southern African
hospitality environment?