Cultural distance and the permanence of acquired CEOs in cross‐border high‐tech acquisitions: combining the acquirer's and CEO's perspectives

Abstract

The cultural distance between the acquiring and acquired firms is a double‐edged sword in cross‐border high‐tech acquisitions. It magnifies the ‘combination potential’ of the acquisition but also poses severe integration challenges. Scholars have highlighted that the retention of acquired CEOs in combined entities is an effective integration action to address these challenges but have generally considered it from the acquiring firms' perspective only. In this study, we also take into account the acquired CEOs' perspective and find that the permanence of acquired CEOs in the post‐acquisition organization depends on the balance between the acquiring firms' incentives to retain the acquired CEOs and the acquired CEOs' opportunity costs to remain in the company. Specifically, we argue that both sides increase with the cultural distance between the acquiring and acquired firms and that the acquired CEOs' personal characteristics and context‐specific conditions also influence this balance. We test our hypotheses using a sample of 447 cross‐border acquisitions of small high‐tech firms by large listed firms between 2001 and 2014. Our findings confirm our expectations and highlight the role of micro‐foundational characteristics in shaping the effect of key macro‐level factors on the integration of high‐tech acquisitions in international contexts.