Acquisition

It could be a natural thing, and it could be a bad thing, and it could be great thing. Just depends.

Acquisition usually means the injection of money, and new management. However, injection of money does not necessarily mean that the employee could be benefit. For example, the new management might want to have return in the shortest time, so they might decide to cut non-earning business in order to make the whole organization to have net earning. In that case, it really depends on what is your existing position. At the same time, with the injection of money, financial control will most likely to become tighter.

Acquisition could mean a bigger organization, like in a merger. In that case, if you are working in the relatively smaller half, actually, you will have a better chance of promotion and you can even go further than before. However, if you are considered redundant, your position is at risk. Of course, if you put politics aside, the stronger one could still survive, however, politics is always something very real and actual, so simply could never ignore it.

Acquisition could mean a change of the core business, like if the acquisition is a listed company. In that case, the investor is just buying a listed shell, so any one in the original business is going to be squeezed to the absolute minimum until it can still earn money but yet with the least expenditure. In that case, the original staff are going to suffer most likely.

Acquisition usually means new management. So, if you are already very close to the original management, you might not be in a good position after all, especially when the old management is still around with lesser influence.

Every count, I would say, but with a different weighting. Hard work, capability and attitude are always important, but they could have different weighting in different settings. Call it luck? I won't, at least it's not sheer luck, call it controllable? Never should it be.