Long Range Planning最新文献

Collaboration between unions and management may facilitate postmerger integration, however collaboration can also be time-consuming and challenging. Using a qualitative case study, we examined union–management collaboration in the integration of two Norwegian firms. The integration was split into two processes, involving different business units. While both processes were designed according to similar principles of collaboration, we observed the emergence of two diverging integration trajectories. Whereas the first process was characterized by a virtuous cycle of trust and constructive collaboration that facilitated integration, the second process turned into a vicious cycle of mistrust and conflict, causing disruption, and impeding integration. Based on our inductive analysis, we identify four distinctive features characterizing the emerging mode of collaboration. We develop a model to illustrate the dynamics of union-management collaboration in postmerger integration. These findings expand the current understanding of merger and acquisition (M&A) dynamics to include a broader set of actors and potential conflict factors in the integration process. Furthermore, our study suggests that collaborative integration processes require careful management while also potentially posing challenges for unions, particularly in the context of historical conflicts.

Despite intuitive appeal, empirical evidence supporting the relatedness hypothesis has been scant, as it has not been established that related acquisitions generally outperform unrelated acquisitions. In considering the impact of merger relatedness on not only acquiring-firm value – as is standard in the relatedness literature – but also on non-merging rival firm value, we offer an alternative perspective that sidesteps common critiques concerning the detection of the relatedness hypothesis. Specifically, our analytical approach broadens the conception of M&A performance outcomes to allow merger relatedness to impact both acquiring and rival firms. In line with the standard approach to testing relatedness, we find higher acquiring-firm value reactions when merging firms exhibit higher degrees of relatedness; and in line with a more-novel approach to testing relatedness, we find lower rival-firm value reactions when merging firms exhibit higher degrees of relatedness. Thus, by simultaneously examining the impact of relatedness on acquiring-firm and rival-firm value in an integrated manner, the relatedness hypothesis is supported.

Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are major events in organizational development and the post-merger phase is widely recognised as being crucial for value creation. One of the most important decisions in this process is the speed of integration. However, despite a growing body of literature on this subject, conclusions remain a source of persistent equivocality. In fact, this debate has been dominated by diametrically opposed, and often highly normative, views advocating either fast or slow post-merger integration (PMI). One commonality within this discussion though, is the shared assumption that integration proceeds at a linear, constant rate, whatever the speed. We challenge this assumption.

We undertook a 30-month, longitudinal study of two merging, not-for-profit, organisations. Using detailed and multiple sources of process data, we were able to identify and track periods of comparatively rapid and equally comparatively slower integration during the two-and-a-half- year PMI process. We thus offer a novel empirical demonstration of the changes in speed during the PMI process. We support this with a theoretical discussion using the temporal concepts of chronos and kairos. We analyse the determinants and mechanisms of changes in speed, asking why and how these variations occur. We call this mechanism the kairotic switch and discuss its theoretical and managerial uses and implications.

The relationship between pre-acquisition alliances and post-acquisition performance has been widely recognized, but there are differing explanations from existing theoretical perspectives. On the one hand, organizational learning emphasizes that prior strategic alliances allow the acquiring firm to learn from the target company, gaining new technological knowledge and skills. On the other hand, relational learning focuses on the acquiring firm's understanding of the target firm's working methods, culture, leadership styles, and overall organizational dynamics, i.e., learning about the target, facilitating the formation of psychological contracts and mutual understanding. To reconcile these perspectives, we explore the moderating role of familiarity. While recognizing the importance of acquiring new knowledge and skills in all alliances, we argue that building trust and understanding with the target firm is especially important in pre-acquisition alliances. As a result, post-acquisition performance will be largely influenced by the acquiring firm's familiarity with the partner's context, thereby enhancing the conditions for learning about the partner. We hypothesize that cultural and market familiarity positively moderate the relationship from pre-acquisition alliances and post-acquisition performance. Using data from SDC Platinum, EIKON, and ORBIS, covering 712 majority or full acquisitions, we find strong support for our hypotheses. Specifically, pre-acquisition alliances are most effective in domestic and industrially related acquisitions. Additionally, the benefit of previous strategic alliances diminishes as cultural distance increases. These findings hold up under various matching techniques and have substantial implications for both scholars and practitioners.

In emerging markets, where strategic information is hard to obtain and often unreliable, how local firms acquire information to execute cross-border acquisitions is unclear. In this paper, we posit that when the market for information is weak, and firms lack experiential knowledge, board interlocks with other cross-border acquirers affect the frequency and pace of cross-border acquisitions. Furthermore, we anticipate board interlock efficacy to decline with the focal firm's firsthand experience (substitution effect) and foreign institutional investors (FIIs) equity holding in the local firm (self-disciplining effect). We find support for our hypotheses in a large sample of Indian firms for the period 2003–2014. Our paper contributes to mergers and acquisitions and emerging markets literature.

Resource redeployment between merging firms is an important way in which corporate acquisitions create value. Such redeployment can occur in horizontal deals when the acquirer and the target are from the same industry, or in non-horizontal deals when the acquirer and the target come from different industries. Although existing research focuses on the former scenario of resource deployment in horizontal acquisitions, resource deployment as a potential source of value in non-horizontal acquisitions has been understudied. This study uses a formal model to develop a theory of resource redeployment that both embraces and contrasts both types of acquisitions to offer new insights. The study concludes that the focus on horizontal acquisitions misses M&A contexts in which resource redeployment can create the highest value. Results from the model also demonstrate that acquisition performance has an inverse U-shaped relationship with relatedness between the merging firms. Finally, the effect of relatedness critically depends on the asymmetry in returns between the merging firms. These results are important for future empirical studies of acquisition performance and of target selection and are instructive to corporate managers seeking targets and managing potential redeployment of resources across organizations via M&A.

Integration process performance, capturing the extent to which integration teams realize their integration milestones, is significant in absorption acquisitions, because it constitutes an important intermediate step towards eventual M&A performance. Still, we know little about the conditions that motivate and enable integration teams to attain the goals of the post-acquisition integration process. Based on goal-setting theory, we suggest that integration process performance in absorption acquisitions depends on the fit among the ambitiousness of the cost and growth goals with which an integration team is tasked, the ampleness of integration team staffing, and the extent to which target firm employees are involved in integration planning. Fuzzy-set Comparative Analyses of 199 integration teams in 23 absorption acquisitions reveal three distinct configurations of these conditions that can engender high integration process performance. The results of this study extend research on post-acquisition integration by offering theory and fine-grained empirical evidence at the task-level of the integration process and provide helpful guidelines for managerial practice in acquisition integration in absorption acquisitions. We further outline the potential of configurational reasoning for the analysis of mergers and acquisitions, as a way to methodologically rejuvenate the field.

Acquisition research is intensely concerned with how acquisitions affect economic value, primarily looking at shareholder value, while overlooking or ascribing other values a subordinate role. We argue that this is unnecessarily restrictive and leaves out important values in acquisitions. To remedy this state of affairs, we critically engage with the notion of value in acquisitions with the aim of enriching acquisition research by recognizing a multitude of values present in acquisitions but largely unrecognized as such in research. Arguing value is an umbrella construct, we adopt a stakeholder approach and conduct a problematizing review focusing on key studies of economic and non-economic values in acquisitions, also enriched with other acquisition and business literature. Apart from challenging the underpinning assumptions of the dominating view of value denoting acquiring shareholders’ financial wealth, we identify non-economic marginalized values that are only rarely studied, including justice or gender equality, and pertinent neglected values, including the natural environment. We propose a research agenda around a broader range of dynamic, multifaceted values.

Emotion significantly affects strategic decision-making by entrepreneurs in family business organisations. This paper proposes a cognitive framework of strategic decision-making that emphasises the importance of emotion, based on a micro-foundational perspective: that is, an integrated hierarchy of cognitive processes underlying entrepreneurs' strategic decision-making and the interactions with external affective events. Previous studies that used traditional behavioural methodologies are reviewed with reference to the proposed cognitive framework to highlight importance of understanding effect of emotion-cognition interactions on entrepreneurs’ strategic decision-making process. New techniques using biological, physiological, and neuroscientific tools are then introduced as complementary methods for this line of research. Finally, future research directions are discussed with a focus on implicit cognitive processing, complex emotions, and cognitive interventions.