Participants generally identified high workloads and geographical alienation as the main negative consequences of the merger. Interestingly, we also identified positive side effects such as new and improved work procedures and, for division office workers, a smaller unit. On the positive, or synergetic, side of workloads, the implementation of more collective work procedures was mentioned by participants as beneficial to their social climate and culture. On the negative side, feelings of stress and exhaustion were mentioned as impairing wellbeing and positive group climate. The synergetic character of office space was associated with benefits of being employed in a small division office unit where everyone knows each other and where office milieu allows sitting side by side with co-workers.
However, two main problems with office space were also revealed. First, as the number of employees within the division office had grown since the merger the office space was considered too small, contributing to a bad work climate. Second, since the division office was located more than 100km away from head office, the distance from top management and decision-making processes caused problems in the division office.
The identified synergy patterns relating to workload and office space may, however, reflect the potential of office cultures alongside the effect of change. The reason is that workload was the dominant head office discourse and office space the dominant division office discourse. Thus, office cultures may transcend the ways in which organizational change and wellbeing are defined and perceived; they thus should become the starting point of organizational development.