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The purpose of this paper is to analyze the implications of the target valuation uncertainty on the wealth distribution between the target and acquirer firms in successful mergers. The paper specifically analyzes the division of the total dollar gains between the two parties and also whether the target and/or the acquirer experience a positive/negative gain in mergers when valuation of the target company is more uncertain.

The analyses contrast the implications of the uncertainty in three well‐known merger hypotheses; the market‐for‐corporate‐control, hubris and synergy.

The results are supportive of the implications of the synergy hypothesis. As target valuation uncertainty decreases, it is more likely that both parties experience positive gains from the transaction although more of the gains from the merger significantly shift towards the target company.

Results suggest that both parties are bargaining on the synergy gains and the target is able to negotiate a greater portion of the synergy gains when the value of the target becomes more predictable.

Reports the results of two experimental tests of the extent to which the large disparity between people’s valuation of gains and losses, and related fairness determinations, are used in judging the acceptability of alternative negotiating or conflict resolution proposals. Participants acted as arbitrators and selected their preferred resolution of conflicts, involving either the division of gains or sharing responsibility for losses. Different cases were presented in which one or the other party incurred varied combinations of direct or opportunity costs, or received varied forms of payments. Contrary to conventional economic assumptions, but consistent with earlier behavioural findings, direct costs incurred by one party to the negotiation were far more important than opportunity costs in setting the terms of a more acceptable resolution. The results strongly suggest that recent behavioural findings might be used to improve the design of negotiating and conflict resolution proposals.

Agency theory suggests that if managers are not monitored, takeover negotiations may be contaminated by agency conflicts, which may weaken a firm's bargaining position. This paper argues that some blockholders are more effective monitors than others, and tests whether the negotiating power of a target or bidder is influenced by their respective blockholder composition. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This paper classifies target and bidder outside blockholders as either aggressive monitors or moderate monitors, and tests whether the degrees of monitoring effectiveness influence a firm's share of the total wealth created by the takeover (a proxy for bargaining power).

This paper finds that firms that have the types of outside blockholders with a greater tendency to monitor managers elicit higher takeover gains. This suggests that negotiating power in takeovers is conditioned on the types of blockholders that monitor the target and bidder. The results support the premise that better monitoring leads to higher gains for shareholders in a takeover. In particular, the findings suggest that the greater the tendency of outside blockholders to monitor managers, the lower the level of takeover-related agency conflicts and the stronger a firm's relative bargaining power.

These findings imply that agency conflicts on either side of a takeover bid may be reduced by better monitoring, but especially among bidders.

The authors use laboratory experiments to test two self-assessment tax mechanisms for facilitating land assembly. One mechanism is incentive compatible with a complex tax function, while the other uses a flat tax rate to mitigate implementation concerns. Sellers publicly declare a price for their land. Overstating its true value is penalized by using the declared price to assess a property tax; understating its value is penalized by allowing developers to buy the property at the declared price. The authors find that both mechanisms increase the rate of land assembly and gains from trade relative to a control in which sellers’ price declarations have no effect on their taxes. However, these effects are statistically insignificant or transitory. The assembly rates in our self-assessment treatments are markedly higher than those of prior experimental studies in which the buyer faces bargaining frictions, such as costly delay or capital constraints.

In this chapter, the author outlines the link between organization design and competitive strategy, focusing on rivalry. A firm’s organization design choices can affect its competitive advantage as well as the strategic decisions of its rivals. Therefore, organization design can influence the nature and intensity of competitive interactions between firms. To illustrate this effect, the author focuses on the literature on divisionalization and offers a set of propositions as examples. Taken together, the author makes three main observations: (1) a firm’s competitive position and objectives are reflected in its organizational choices; (2) heterogeneity in competitive position and objectives lead to heterogeneity in organization design choices across firms; and (3) organization design and competitive strategy are interdependent processes. The author concludes by discussing the implications for strategy and management research and pointing out some opportunities for future research.

Many announced cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&As) are never brought to completion despite potential negative consequences to acquirers and targets. This paper presented evidence on the dynamic effects of spatial distance and two industry-level characteristics, namely industry relatedness between the two firms and technological intensity, on the completion likelihood of cross-border M&A deals. Based on a sample of 8,489 M&A transactions we found that the completion likelihood of cross-border M&As increases with spatial distance. The effect is more pronounced for deals across technology-based industries, evidence for related deals is inconclusive.

This paper complements previous research on investment in firm-specific human capital by applying real options analysis. Our framework suggests that the parties receive valuable options to exit the contract when information becomes revealed in the future, but these options may be more valuable for one party than the other. Companies and workers attempt to reduce the value of the options through contractual mechanisms that either shift wealth to the party granting the option or prevent the option from being exercised. In both cases, the mechanisms cause the parties to invest in firm-specific capital, resulting in higher output and higher wages.

Managers of corporations that are facing fading product-market domains are often inertial in their response to such decline or engage in endgame strategies within these markets. For managers operating in dynamic markets, however, such responses are often ineffective. Rather, such markets often demand a corporate entrepreneurship response whereby managers move their businesses into new market opportunities as the value of current market domains inevitably begins to fade. The emphasis is on exiting from declining markets while simultaneously capturing and exploiting opportunities in more promising markets. In this chapter, we describe the recombinative organizational form (i.e. structure and process) by which this can occur. We focus on the modular organizational structure (i.e. modularity, relatedness, and loose-coupling) and corporate dynamic capabilities (i.e. probing, patching, and recoupling processes) by which managers can cope with the inevitable decline that is the nature of dynamic industries. An example from recent empirical research provides an illustration of such corporate entrepreneurship.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze a contract-based relationship for value co-creation and gain-sharing between two companies for the purpose of industrial maintenance services. After five years of good results for both parties, the relationship was terminated, thus raising questions regarding on the actual gains shared by both partners from joint actions.

The research method is the longitudinal case study. The research question is: why would a contractual relationship of co-creation of value be terminated given the fact that it yielded good financial results for both parts over the course of five years? The main research techniques were structured interviews with relevant actors and documental analysis from both parts involved in the contract.

Even valuable contracts can be terminated if the external scenario changes significantly: it matters very little the good job done together if the result became poor due to external reasons, as buyer’s sales drop in the period. In the inner scenario, mistruth can arise if the buyer maintains parallel structures for performing similar tasks to those of the service provider, showing some kind of independence from the supplier.

The main limitation is that inherent to case studies: the lack of generalization.

When companies decide to contract regular long-term maintenance services, preventions to revenue reductions of the main activity the must be present, for the continuity of the contract.

To the date of this research, no similar study was found, regarding the influence of the external results in the internal relationships in co-creation value contracts.

An international management movement known as New Public Management (NPM) emerged during the 1970s and 1980s. It relies on the normative use of economic market models, transaction cost theory, and public choice theories to deliver public services. While the manifestations of this new approach have taken many different avenues across the world, in the United States the primary manifestations have been found in the “Reinventing Government” movement (Gore, 1993), and the “Competitive Sourcing” plan of the Bush Administration (Office Management and Budget, 2002, 2003). A central component of NPM practices in the United States is the use of “outsourcing” of government service delivery to private or non-profit organizations.