| Utah Symphony and Opera Merger | Organizational Management | Assignment 1 | |

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Abstract
The purpose of this merger is to combine the skills and resources of Utah Symphony and Opera Merger for better productivity and success. In this merger, focus will be given to the fundamental changes that will be conclusive for the smooth running of business operations for both the companies.
With this analysis, Ann Ewers, the General Director of Utah Opera has to decide whether the merger will be viable or not. The analysis will contain motivational theories necessary in the merger process along with a discussion of different power types, and ways to deal with these different power types during decision making, the skill to employ various influences in creating additional support systems and the negative consequences of such mergers.
The need for this merger rises because of financial difficulties faced by Utah Symphony (USO) and Utah Opera (UOS). Due to the financial difficulties, both the companies are eager to merge into one organization.

A1. Bill Bailey
Mr. Bailey could make use of McClelland’s Need Theory for Utah Opera. The Need Theory is about power, affiliation and achievement. McClelland opines that the needs of an individual form over a period of time through experiences. It is because of these needs that an individual expresses desire for power, affiliation and achievement, and these three factors affect the actions of people from a managerial point of view. It will be correct to say that motivation within an individual arise from needs only.
In the present context, Mr. Bailey can use the need for affiliation for convincing the orchestra members that the merger will be beneficial for them as it will result in better pay scales and better performance opportunities, giving the orchestra members ‘affiliation’ for their talent and skills. The need for affiliation can also convince the community that the merger will strengthen the organization and streamline it towards a common goal. The community stands to benefit from better performances from the merged orchestra and better value in terms of donated money.
Further, Mr. Bailey can use the need for achievement for convincing the General Director of Utah Opera, Anne Ewers, that the merger will be beneficial for her, both personally and professionally, and for the community at large.
Lastly, the need for power can be used for convincing the board members of both the organizations that the merged organization will doubly focus on their goals and strive to make the organization secure. If the need for power is positively channelized, it will improve the performance of the new organization. To meet the need for power, the budget of both the organization needs to be audited and merged, and enlarge their base of investors and stakeholders.
It is imperative that all the three factors of McClelland’s theory are taken into consideration while presenting the proposal for merger, thereby, increasing its chances of approval. When the merger goes through, the opera will belong to a larger organization and achieve a secondary need in theory.

A2. Scott Parker
The goal for Scott Parker, the Board Chair of the Symphony, is to convince Mrs. Abravanel to give her approval and support towards the merger. This can be done with the help of Maslow’s Need for Esteem. As Waitley said – “To establish true self esteem we must concentrate on our successes and forget about the failures and the negatives in our lives.”
There are two kinds of human self-esteem needs, said Abraham Maslow. These are lower esteem needs and higher esteem needs. In the lower segment are needs for recognition, status, prestige, fame and attention. In the higher segment are needs for competence, self-respect, strength, mastery, self-confidence, freedom and independence. Mr. Parker should explain to Mrs. Abravanel that the merger will unify the two organizations, lead to better financial stability as well as higher success.
Further, Mr. Parker has to deal with her primary apprehension that if the merger is through, her husband’s accomplishments and memory will ultimately be lowered. Mrs. Abravanel needs to be told that it is becoming difficult for the organization to gain private and public funding and that the organization is facing problems of contractual obligations because of financial shortage.
Thus, if the merger is not done, it is possible that the orchestra will cease to exist and erase the memory of her husband’s accomplishments permanently. This will appeal to her need for achievement. With this merger, the organization will be able to achieve more than is possible without the merger, allowing her late husband’s vision for the USO to turn into reality.

A3. Power
My research tells me that the use of power can give rise to both negative and positive outcomes. A person within an organization and the organization itself stands to benefit when power is used as an opportunity. Power grows with sharing.
The General Director of UOC, Anne Ewers is chosen to lead the merger because of her qualification and experience which make her the best person to handle the merger. Her qualification gives her positional power and personal power. Her skills and experience helped the Boston Lyric Opera to complete their 450,000 USD debt. She also achieved the reputation as an outstanding opera director during her stint with San Francisco Opera and another Canadian Opera company.
Under her tutelage, the annual performances of UOC increased from three to four and the total number of patrons stood at 130,000. In order to make the younger generation appreciate opera, she produced operas across the state for students and also engaged the services of the USO for operatic productions. With her guidance, the opera funding increased from 1.5 million USD to 5 million USD.
Kreinter and Kinicki say that “positional power is the ability to influence others by the leader’s title or standing within an organization” (2010). Anne Brewers can use her positional power to influence the merger. Further, her role as an influential leader, as an opera director and fundraiser and strategic management practices gives her personal power, which when combined with positional power will translate into best efforts to make a successful merger, beneficial for both the organization and the community.

A3a. Positional Power
The power derived from the position of a person is known as positional power. The reason why positional power exists is because organizations find it rewarding to deploy certain powers to certain individuals for them to accomplish their jobs effectively. The positional power of Anne will help to facilitate the merger effectively keeping in mind her past performance records and her fundraising capabilities, which will definitely benefit both the organization. Her experience and performance will help to lessen tension of USO regarding their potential loss of their main source of income through the annual Salt Lake City Zoo, Arts and Parks fund (ZAP) contribution.
It is evident that Anne has established cordial relationships with the executive committees of both the symphony and opera organization and thus, she can start to use her positional and personal power to influence the merger. However, she will face challenge from the board of directors who have higher positional power than hers, and it is entirely possible that all the efforts of Anne may be thwarted if any of the board members decides to use his/her positional power negative to stop the merger from happening.
Lastly, Anne has to use her positional power to influence those with lesser positional power, the organization employees, and the arts community.

A3b. Personal power
Personal power derives from having knowledge that is valued by the organization or individuals with whom the person interacts. Personal power also involves “expertise in a particular field, at problem solving or at performing critical tasks (Munter, M. 2005).
In this context, the director of Utah Symphony (USO), Keith Lockhart, feels that he is left out of the merger process. He is also not familiar with Anne Ewers, her work record, experiences and successes. He is concerned because he has to work as a subordinate to Anne during the merger process and thus, he and the orchestra will suffer.
Hence, it is now up to Anne to use her personal power and influence Keith to become a key member in the leader team of the merged organization. She can achieve this by sharing and dividing the responsibilities between Keith and herself. As the musical director, she should allow Keith to report directly to the Board and reiterate to him that he will have his own say over the artistic and musical aspects of the merger organization. Any decision related to the orchestra should be taken after consultation with Keith. It should be assured that the viewpoints of Keith and Anne do not enter into conflict with the vision or mission of the organization after merger.
Further, to ensure that Keith does not feel sidelined, Anne should have one-on-one basis consultation periodically and discuss the happenings of the merger, and ask for suggestions and ideas or clarify any conflicting ideas.
Thus, what happens here is that Anne uses her personal power to persuade Keith to trust her as a leader and convince him that he will not be stripped off his autonomy and position.

A4. Organizational Performance
It is evident that the merger will cause problems between the musicians and their contracts with the individual organizations. It is imperative that this problem is solved before the merger is finalized or else it will severely impact the performance of the merged organization. The musicians are rightly concerned whether their collective bargaining agreement will continue to exists or not after the merger.
As per the Equity Theory by Adam, the perceptions of the musicians are formed based on the sense of justice practices by the organization or their perception of fair treatment by the organization. Further, “organizational justice is distributive in nature and how resources are awarded to the musicians” (Kreinter & Kinicki, 2010). It should be noted that the USO is supported by a union bargaining agreement and they are of the opinion that the merger is just another way to take their pay and benefits enjoyed by the USO members. It is also believed that after the merger, the merged organization will change the 2002-2003 salary increase of 12.9 percent and 6.8 percent. Currently, 60 percent of the budget goes towards paying the salaries and other benefits to the musicians.
On the other hand, there is no such agreement in the UOC. Nevertheless, they are worried that if the merger goes through, the opera will take a backseat and much of the budget will be consumed by the symphony members.
Thus, it is important that Anne and the Board handling the merger solves this issue, otherwise, the merger will fail.

A4a. Recommendation
The following the recommendations made for the issues rose in A4 section. 1. The USO members needs to be assured by Anne that the merger will not change the terms of agreement, that is, the salary increase percentage and the present bargaining agreement will continue to function. They need to be convinced that they will work as a “team” in the new organization. 2. The UOC singers and USO musicians need to be convinced that the new organization will not shortchange them. Anne Ewers should address this early in the merger process, requesting the musicians and the organization to follow the terms of the current contract. 3. It is the responsibility of Anne to talk to the Board about the importance of honoring the contract binding the musicians. 4. There should be an “open talk” session where Anne will address the financial concerns of the organization with the symphony. This open talk will make the situation clear as to why the merger is taking place to the symphony members and change their perspective of procedural and distributive justice.

A5. Influence Tactics
After the decisions are made, Anne must use her personal and positional power to convince the full time staff members of Opera that the merger is in their best interests. She should use inspirational persuasion, rational persuasion, consultation and personal appeal to drive the point.
Rational persuasion can be used to give the members a logical argument and factual evidence that the merger will benefit all the parties concerned. With a combination of sense, logic and facts as to how the staff and artists will be contributing to the mission and vision of Symphony, Anne will be able to draw a positive picture of the status of the members in the new organization. The inspirational and personal appeals can be used to make the members enthusiastic about the merger by drawing on their ideals, aspirations and values. This will give them confidence and show that Anne is genuinely concerned about their feelings and thus, build loyalty and friendship. The full time members could undergo consultation to understand the importance of participation by the staff members and artists in planning strategies.

Conclusion
The paper analyzes human interaction within an organization. These interactions play an important role in the merger of Utah Symphony and Utah Opera. The paper shows how Anne Ewers can use her positional power and personal power to lead the merger successfully. With this paper, Anne Ewers can think about issues that may result from the impending merger.

References
Watley, D. (2006, April 6). Denis Watley To establish true self-esteem we must concentrate on our successes and forget about the failures and the negatives in our lives. - Wisdom Word. Wisdom Word. Retrieved June 5, 2012, from http://www.wisdomword.info/denis-watley-5/
Kreitner, R., & Kinicki, A. (2010). Organizational behavior (9th ed.). Boston: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.
Munter, M. (20052006). Guide to managerial communication effective business writing and speaking (7th ed.). Upper Saddle River (N.J.): Pearson Prentice Hall.