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Mergers and acquisitions (M&As) are an important strategic tool for continuous adaptation, sustainable corporate development and external growth. At the same time, M&As involve high levels of risk with mixed performance results even under normal circumstances. Even though the M&A market was continuously growing for the last decade, it was abruptly ended by the coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic as executives were more concerned about liquidity than with long-term growth strategies. This raises the question how M&A behaviour is affected by the economic fall-out of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The mixed method research design was employed in this study.

The authors particularly investigate how target selection as well as synergy management are affected by the pandemic. The study analysis reveals four archetypical responses to the COVID-19 crisis. The authors describe those responses in detail and analyse antecedents that seem to influence firms' acquisition behaviour during the pandemic.

The paper draws on survey and interview data of M&A practitioners.

The purpose of this paper is to develop the role of integration flexibility as a mediator of acquisition performance and demonstrate how this capability varies across firms.

The study develops a conceptual framework of anticipated relationships by building on existing but so far unintegrated acquisition research.

The study suggests integration flexibility provides an explanation for variance in acquisition performance. The study identifies drivers behind acquisition integration flexibility in acquirer characteristics, deal characteristics and integration management. The authors further specify the positive and negative impact of several key factors commonly discussed in acquisition research.

Integration flexibility stands out as a novel explanation for acquisition performance. Still, the benefits from flexibility are not universal and developed logic suggests it represents a dynamic capability for acquirers. Our framework helps predict which acquirers and deals are more likely demonstrating this capability, thus contributing to predict acquisition performance.

Acquisitions often take place in dynamic environments and reportedly often fail. Predicting and developing acquisition integration flexibility stands out as an important task for acquiring management.

Annual global acquisition values are on par with the GDP of large industrial nations (e.g. Germany) and failures for reasons of lacking acquisition integration flexibility contributes to value destruction harming not only firms, but society at large. Improved integration flexibility likely mediates this risk.

Making an acquisition to adapt to environmental change implicitly assumes greater integration that can limit flexibility. While our argument builds on key concepts from acquisition research these so far have remained unconnected in relation to acquisition integration flexibility. The authors develop factors influencing this important capability and show how it mediates acquisition performance. This links acquisition antecedents with integration or phases typically treated separately.

Acquisition integration is important to realize synergies and to achieve acquisition success. However, there is a lack of clarity on pertinent integration approaches suggesting that integration is more complex and dynamic than traditionally assumed. In this chapter, we shed light on ambiguous cause effect relationships by investigating the effect of integration related decisions on intermediate goals. Additionally, we argue that entrepreneurial integration skills, or proactivity under ambiguity, are needed to keep pace with the dynamism inherent in acquisition integration. Based on primary data on 116 acquisitions, we find that entrepreneurial integration skills can display both advantages and disadvantages. While it helps to realize expected and serendipitous synergies, it can also trigger employee uncertainty due to decreased transparency. In supplementary analysis, we show measures to outperform with various integration approaches. Implications for management research and practice are identified.

Increasing chances of firm survival requires enduring entrepreneurship or the ability to balance competing demands for exploration and exploitation. We developed how acquisitions can provide needed disruption to change a firm’s dominant orientation toward exploration or exploitation or enable a continued focus on a firm’s dominant orientation. The result is a new typology for acquisition integration associated with different pre- and post-acquisition characteristics. For example, a firm with an exploitation orientation faces different integration challenges in acquiring targets with an exploration or exploitation orientation. We also distinguished between human and task integration to enable more nuanced integration decisions that help to reconcile conflicting findings on acquisition integration decisions. Implications for management research and practice were discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to expand the knowledge about the value of intuition for organizational innovativeness and organizational factors inhibiting intuitive decision making.

The study develops and tests a theoretical model that relates intuitive and deliberate decision-making styles to organizational innovativeness, and the application of either decision-making style to organizational size and decision maker's power position in an organization. Based on a survey conducted in 2011, data from 281 organizations was analyzed applying linear regression analysis.

Intuitive and deliberate processing both relate positively to organizational innovativeness. Organizational size relates negatively to the application of an intuitive decision-making style, while power position relates positively to the application of an intuitive decision-making style.

The findings suggest that intuitive decision making is valuable for organizational innovativeness. Still, its application is suppressed if decision makers are in lower power positions or part of larger organizations.

High demands on managers’ and entrepreneurs’ information processing capabilities require them to apply their full range of cognitive capabilities (i.e. deliberative and intuitive processing). Intuitive decision making, however, still seems to be confined to those who have least reason to fear critique from others.

The purpose of this paper is to detect and challenge generally accepted management and consulting practice in Mergers & Acquisitions (M&As). M&As have been an important issue in strategic management and corporate development for decades. The integration process of two separate entities has been found to be of importance, and has, accordingly, received a significant amount of attention by research, management and consulting literature. Based on these insights, managers tend to rely on well-established and generally accepted rules developed by practice and consultants that should support a successful integration process and the generation of value. Nonetheless, M&As’ efforts still often fail to create value. So is the common practice of the established drivers and beneficial consequences of the integration of M&As right, or do the experiences of consultants, companies and managers reveal something different?

To understand these challenges, the authors spent four years studying M&A projects and subsequent integration processes of more than 400 companies that engaged in M&A efforts. The data derived from four survey-based quantitative studies among more than 430 CEOs, CFOs and other senior managers in the field of M&As and personal interviews that were conducted to get in-depth insights.

This extensive research on the efforts and projects of M&As over many years and including many companies reveals that successful integration processes are complex, social and culturally dependent endeavors and that the application of commonly accepted and established principles oversimplifies and disregards the interdependencies.

The present paper unveils four established principles concerning the successful integration after M&As as tenacious myths and provides more differentiated insights into value-destroying and value-creating mechanisms in M&As.

This paper aims to clarify the role of intuition in managerial decision making by identifying when intuitive decision making is typically applied, of what value it is for organizations and what inhibits its application.

The authors combine insights from cognitive and social psychology with empirical evidence from a survey study with Austrian organizations.

In conjunction with deliberation, intuitive decision making contributes positively to organizational performance. Its application is moderated by a person’s hierarchical position, organization size as well as the subject at hand.

While literature suggests to rely on self-reports to measure success, this approach can also be perceived as a limitation of this paper. Although insiders are most knowledgeable about their organizations, their information might lack objectivity. It is therefore important that future research applies more objective success measures.

This research stresses the merits and dangers of intuitive decision making and advises managers how to become “good” intuitive decision makers.

Understanding the hallmarks of intuitive decision making, as well as the factors that moderate it, alters the understanding of our actions and therefore has implications for all human interactions.

This paper adds to existing literature on intuition in management research by providing empirical data regarding the value of intuition and factors that inhibit its application in organizational contexts.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether transformational leadership behavior is a function of the leader’s own self-respect and his/her evaluation of being capable, significant, and worthy (self-esteem). It is also tested whether transformational leadership is related to innovation success.

Data were collected from 411 entrepreneurs and managing directors of small- and medium-sized Austrian companies. The proposed hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling (PLS).

A strong and significant relationship between self-esteem and transformational leadership was found. Furthermore, data analyses revealed that transformational leadership has a positive impact on innovation success.

This study reveals the important but heretofore neglected role of self-esteem, defined as a manager’s overall self-evaluation of his/her competences, as an important predictor of transformational leadership.