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The purpose of this study is to provide a broad understanding of the pre-completion stage and subsequent abandonment of mergers and acquisitions (M&As).

A total of 117 peer-reviewed, English language articles published in scholarly journals were considered in the review. The approach includes a descriptive evaluation of the literature, coupled with content analysis. The paper uses both positivist and constructivist approaches to qualitative research. The analysis is conducted with the help of R programming and Gephi visualization software. The authors organize the work around the event of outcome/closure of deal proposal.

It is found that earlier studies sampled on domestic M&As in developed economies (DEs). However, the interest of scholars has increased in cross-border deals and emerging economies (EEs) in the last decade. Various factors interact and facilitate the completion/abandonment of good and bad deals. The authors find that complex non-linear relationships exist, and there is a need for studies with other classification techniques focusing on predictive accuracy.

The literature review is limited to articles available to the researcher using search terms related to M&A completion/termination. The databases accessed were: ProQuest, Scopus and Web of Science. However, backward snowballing was performed to avoid the omission of relevant articles.

The findings and subsequent discussions familiarize researchers and practitioners with an overview of research undertaken in the field of M&A abandonment. The authors find voids within the literature and suggest future research agendas.

The purpose of this paper is to show how self-regulation influences the relationship between nascent entrepreneurial exploitation activities, firm birth and firm abandonment.

This study draws from a unique longitudinal dataset of 181 nascent entrepreneurs from Switzerland who have been interviewed by phone in 2015 and 2016. It uses a moderated binary logistic regression to test the hypotheses.

This study provides evidence that discrepancies in promotion orientation can explain different ways exploitation can lead to an increased likelihood of firm birth and a decreased likelihood of firm abandonment while respectively increasing persistence. Findings suggest that this is attributed to the regulatory fit between a promotion orientation and exploitation activities.

For scholars, our findings provide insights into reasons for entrepreneurial persistence, as well as how firm birth can be achieved with different levels of exploitation activities.

This study provides entrepreneurs with information on how to increase their persistence as well as the likelihood of firm birth while considering their regulatory focus.

Based on regulatory focus theory, this paper highlights different paths to firm birth with varying quantity of exploitation activities. We contribute to a greater understanding of firm emergence by accounting for the impact of regulatory foci.

We discuss recent developments in real options theory and its applications to strategic management research, examine the potential difficulties in implementing real options in theory and practice, and propose several areas for future research. Our review shows that real options theory has provided substantial insights into investment and exit decisions as well as into the choice of investment modes. In addition, extant research studies have contributed significantly to our understanding of whether and how organizations can benefit from real options. Future research that addresses difficulties in applications will further advance both real options theory and practice in strategic management. We call for future generations of research to enhance the impact of real options as an emerging dominant conceptual lens in strategic management.

The importance of decision maker interpretations in determining organizational responses to performance downturn is underscored and incorporated into a model proposed by Ford and Baucus (1987). In this study, we adapted a Ford and Baucus model to examine 25 organizations in an area of economic downturn. Managerial perceptions of the business environment were related to internal and external organizational responses. Findings were interpreted as supporting the portion of the model dealing with active responses. Logical relationships between variables were observed. Moreover, a series of linkages was suggested. While the model shows distinct categories of responses, an important finding of this research is that firms' responses could not be characterized as falling exclusively into any one specific category as predicted by the model. Instead, we found complex networks of internal and external strategies.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the factors that impede innovation in Colombian manufacturing firms, as measured by the level of technological intensity.

The authors used data from 1,850 firms to determine the barriers associated with information and internal capabilities, risks and environment.

The main results of this study confirm that potentially innovative firms of low technological intensity are more likely to ascribe high importance to obstacles associated with information and internal capabilities, when compared with innovative firms. The abandonment of innovative projects, family-operated enterprises and investment in R&D are all related to an increased perception of obstacles to innovation, while investments in information and communication technologies have an opposite effect. Variables as partnerships and export behaviour, have different effects depending on the level of technological intensity.

This study investigates the obstacles to innovation of a firm as determined by its characteristics and as measured against its level of technological intensity. Previous studies have investigated barriers to innovation in technologically advanced sectors (Lachman and López, 2019) and technology-based SMEs (De Moraes Silva et al. 2020) or how the technological intensity of the firm determines access to university knowledge for overcoming barriers (Kanama and Nishikawa, 2017). The only study to analyse barriers to innovation by measuring a firm’s technological intensity was conducted into Mexican manufacturing and services sector companies by Santiago et al. (2017).

This study explores corporate strategic orientations as important drivers of firms’ philanthropic engagement. Specifically, the purpose of this paper is to empirically examine the relationship between two broad corporate strategic orientations – domain offense (DO) and domain abandonment (DA) strategies – and the level of philanthropic engagement.

The authors propose that firms pursuing aggressive DO strategies are more likely to invest in corporate philanthropy as part of their market expansion efforts. On the contrary, firms pursuing DA strategies are less likely to invest in corporate philanthropy because of decreased slack resources, rather conservative external stakeholder expectations as well as a firm’s conscious decision to disengage with external stakeholders. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis was conducted using data from 122 publicly traded US corporations from 2008 to 2013.

The findings provided empirical support for a significant positive relationship between DO strategies (acquisition and strategic alliance intensity) and firms’ philanthropic engagement. However, the relationship between DA strategies (divestiture and plant/facility closing) and firms’ philanthropic engagement was not found to be significant. Overall, the findings indicated that philanthropic engagements along with carefully crafted DO strategies help firms expand their market presence.

Organizational leaders that systematically target philanthropic causes that effectively converge with important corporate strategies do benefit in the long run by achieving better brand equity and overall enhanced corporate reputation.

By empirically investigating the relationship between corporate strategic orientations and philanthropic engagement, this study contributes to the on-going scholarly discussion on the link between corporate strategies and philanthropic engagements.

This paper categorizes and critiques the empirical research strategies that have been employed to test real options theory. Existing research has sought to detect valuable options in firms’ strategic investments as well as to investigate the payoffs from these investments. Our review highlights some of the evidence that has accumulated in recent years for real options theory. We flag some of the most important challenges and tradeoffs associated with the use of different empirical research approaches for testing real options theory in strategic management. The paper concludes by offering a number of research priorities to advance the theory by probing its descriptive validity as well as by addressing its normative aspirations to bridge corporate finance and strategy.

We study how tape drive producers respond to the almost continuous emergence of new drive formats across the technology's history. The analysis characterizes the technological formats of tape drives according to their degree of contrast (distinctiveness and visibility) from other formats. We also develop and test arguments about how different types of tape drive manufacturers add and drop the production of formats as a function of the producer density of formats. In the empirical analysis, we find that firms producing formats with high contrast experience a lower rate of mortality. In terms of new format adoption, we find that firms characterized by high levels of contrast are more likely to add formats. Regarding the target of adoption, tape drive producers are more likely to add higher density formats; and these producers are also less likely to drop higher density formats.

While management is considered relatively immature compared to other social sciences, for over half the lifespan of the discipline, the field has been bombarded with “fads”. For the purposes of this manuscript, fads are defined as “managerial interventions which appear to be innovative, rational, and functional and are aimed at encouraging better organizational performance”. This definition draws on and integrates a number of theorists’ conceptualizations of fads. Notably, however, there is some point at which a fad sufficiently demonstrates its effectiveness in numerous and diverse settings to warrant an evolution from fad status to something which implies more permanence. This issue is addressed in a theoretical model which traces the process of fad adoption using historical bibliometric data. The model offers propositions concerning the precursors, moderators, and outcomes of adoption.

This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.

When it comes to corporate social responsibility (CSR) considerations, as businesses understand the needs of their communities and improve dialogue with them, they are also seeking to maximize the efficiency and strategic benefits of CSR activities. Many skeptics regard this as essentially firms having their cake and eating it – engaging in activities which tick the CSR box, but are really just another strategic tool to increase revenues and profit.

The briefing saves busy executives, strategists and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.