{"title":"What constrains firms from divesting their legacy business?","authors":"Yang Ding","doi":"10.1002/cjas.1684","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>This study focuses on a unique business phenomenon, legacy divestitures, which refers to the sale or spinoff of a firm's original business. I argue that firms may be prevented from engaging in legacy divestiture by organizational inertia, which become increasingly stronger as the legacy business gets older. I also examine factors that help firms overcome the constraints of inertial forces on firms' legacy divestitures. Hypotheses are tested using a sample of 108 diversified American companies, 27 of which divested legacy businesses between 1980 and 2017. Firms are less likely to divest their legacy businesses as the legacy units get older. The negative relationship is weakened by two factors, performance–aspiration gaps and R&D intensity.</p>","PeriodicalId":47349,"journal":{"name":"Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences-Revue Canadienne Des Sciences De L Administration","volume":"40 1","pages":"83-97"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2000,"publicationDate":"2022-07-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences-Revue Canadienne Des Sciences De L Administration","FirstCategoryId":"91","ListUrlMain":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/cjas.1684","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q4","JCRName":"BUSINESS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
This study focuses on a unique business phenomenon, legacy divestitures, which refers to the sale or spinoff of a firm's original business. I argue that firms may be prevented from engaging in legacy divestiture by organizational inertia, which become increasingly stronger as the legacy business gets older. I also examine factors that help firms overcome the constraints of inertial forces on firms' legacy divestitures. Hypotheses are tested using a sample of 108 diversified American companies, 27 of which divested legacy businesses between 1980 and 2017. Firms are less likely to divest their legacy businesses as the legacy units get older. The negative relationship is weakened by two factors, performance–aspiration gaps and R&D intensity.
期刊介绍:
The Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences (CJAS) is a multidisciplinary, peer-reviewed, international quarterly that publishes manuscripts with a strong theoretical foundation. The journal welcomes literature reviews, quantitative and qualitative studies as well as conceptual pieces. CJAS is an ISI-listed journal that publishes papers in all key disciplines of business. CJAS is a particularly suitable home for manuscripts of a crossdisciplinary nature. All papers must state in an explicit and compelling way their unique contribution to advancing theory and/or practice in the administrative sciences.