Emotional memories of personal experiences can influence people’s thinking, feelings, and behavior for many years after the actual experience. Mergers and acquisitions are prolonged, intense periods of organizational change characterized by intense emotionality. Employees may experience, amongst others, shock at the announcement, uncertainty at a personal level, loss of identity and trust, acculturative stress, and expressions of unregulated emotions and behavior. The emotions evoked may increase the demand for emotional regulation, influence decision-making, and spread to other members and levels of the organization. The memories may also influence views of the future by constraining goals and influencing expectations of future events. To complicate things, autobiographic memories are transitory dynamic mental constructs that change over time. Despite the potentially detrimental influence of these memories, both practice and academia lack an understanding of how they impact people and what actions can influence their impact on the organization. Orwell’s conclusion, “He who controls the past controls the future,” is also likely valid in a business context. Management that tries to shape an organization's future should pay attention to influencing the memories of the past. In this paper, we review the characteristics of autobiographical emotional memories. Then, we introduce a micro-level longitudinal process model to explain how they impact people’s attitudes and behavior. Finally, we discuss the implications for academia and practice regarding how emotional memories can influence the dynamics of prolonged organizational change processes.
