For the reasons for failure rates of corporate acquisitions, a gap of knowledge still exists and attracts considerable attention from both practitioners and academics. The continued acceleration of merger and acquisition activity, globally, and across all industry sectors, demands greater understanding of this gap in knowledge. With increasing acquisitions, the likelihood of experiencing such an event, with the resulting emotional responses affecting the working life of middle managers, increases too. In an acquisition, the acquired middle managers are key figures and deserve better understanding of their relevance for an acquisition’s success.

Acquisitions are emotional life events. However, examination of the extant body of literature reveals a paucity of scholarly exploration of the acquisition narrative on the emotional responses of middle managers in the acquired corporation. This study addresses the problem, and examines, through a multi-case study design, the emotional responses of acquired middle managers in the acquisition narrative. This study addresses three research questions: (1) How do acquired middle managers describe the acquisition announcement? (2) How do acquired middle managers describe their emotional response to the acquisition announcement? (3) Which intervening factors influence the relationship between the acquisition announcement and the emotional response?

Data is selected, prepared, and analysed in accordance with the subtle realist ontology, moderate constructivism epistemology and the stance of an empathetic observer. The research explores four organisational cases, and investigates the emotional responses described, retrospectively, in semi-structured interviews. Data analysis and synthesis result in four findings: Acquisition narratives being sequences of the Pre-narrative and the Acquisition Announcement (Finding 1), sequential emotional responses initiated by sequential acquisition announcements (Finding 2), catalysts for consistency comprising perceived legitimacy and consonance (Finding 3), and perceived legitimacy and consonance acting as stimuli for middle managers’ appraisals, resulting in sequential emotional responses (Finding 4). These findings contribute to both theory and practice by offering an emergent theoretical framework on the nature of the relationship between the acquisition announcements and the middle managers' emotional responses and the modification of existing Emotional Balancing Theory.

This research presents a circular model of acquisition narrative balancing with four stages. The emergent theoretical framework provides the foundation for further research and the focus for practitioners in the acquisition planning process. It specifically provides organisational leaders of the acquired and acquiring entity with a better understanding of what requires consideration in their communication strategy towards the middle managers.