Toward a more complete understanding of institutional logic configuration in an merger project

Abstract

The frequency and scale of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) have significantly increased in the last two decades, in spite of continuous reports on their high failure rates. M&A scholars call for insights to be sought on the merger process to help understand the complexity of these operations and decrease their failure rate. M&A scholars advocate paying attention to institutional logics' configuration shaping a firm's decisions to grasp merger process complexity. Institutional studies show how specific logics have a powerful influence on the strategic decisions and priorities of organizations. Yet, few studies have empirically combined multiple levels by framing logics' configuration fostering specific strategic decisions. This study addresses this issue. Using a longitudinal case study, we analyze how institutional logics' configuration at organizational and inter‐organizational levels supports firms' strategic decisions to merge and to end the deal. We demonstrate that despite the alignment of logics at the organizational level, the multiplicity of logics at the inter‐organizational level led to deal failure.