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For several years, scholars studying mergers and acquisitions (M&A) regret their incapacity to fully capture and understand this complex phenomenon. Several authors have called for multidisciplinary approaches to improve our research. We believe that, instead of focusing on theories and multidisciplinarity, a complementary line of attack could be to put into question the methods used to study M&As. The purpose of this chapter is to show how mixed methods research can be a relevant design to open the black box of M&A and improve our understanding of M&A integration processes. Indeed, a key feature of mixed methods research is its methodological pluralism or eclecticism, which frequently results in superior research compared to mono-method research. In this chapter, we first define mixed methods research; we then review the literature on M&A using mixed methods and finally show the pros and cons of this research design to advance our understanding of M&A.

The purpose of this paper is to examine operational-level implementation issues regarding mergers and acquisitions (M&As) in general, and resource combination and integration at the functional marketing level in particular.

The paper introduces four factors (i.e. collaboration, interaction, marketing synergy, and the realignment of marketing resources) that support successful M&A marketing integration and enhance overall M&A performance.

The results indicate that marketing synergy and the realignment of marketing resources contribute significantly to the extent of integration. At the same time, the authors find a significant but negative relationship between the interaction dimension and the speed of integration.

The cultural integration of firms that feature different management styles and organizational cultures has been recognized as a particularly challenging aspect of cross-border M&As. This study explains factors that contribute to effective marketing integration in M&As.