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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.

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.

Smart Manufacturing (SM) lies at the core of Industry 4.0. Operations management research has investigated the determinants of SM advancement but there is still limited understanding of the linkages between SM and organizational factors and about whether both the technological and organizational subsystems for SM are guided by firms’ competitive priorities. To close these gaps, building on operations strategy theory, this paper aims to empirically test a model positing that competitive priorities drive SM advancement. The relation between competitive priorities and SM advancement is assumed to be mediated by organizational microfoundations.

Using data from a single respondent survey with 234 firms in the automotive component industry, structural equation modeling is adopted to test the model hypotheses. Relevant constructs are measured with reference to the lead plant for SM.

Findings highlight that SM advancement is driven by the need to simultaneously compete in terms of cost, quality and delivery, thus suggesting that manufacturers view SM as a mean to develop multiple manufacturing capabilities. Organizational microfoundations fully mediate the relation between competitive priorities and SM advancement.

Results have implications for SM research, as they provide an understanding of the strategic priorities of firms engaging in SM. Findings also bear relevance for manufacturing executives engaged in the SM transformation, as they provide quantitative evidence that shaping an adequate organizational environment is a prerequisite for SM advancement.

This article presents a model based on a review of international and European policy and current European Agency for Special Needs and Inclusive Education work on school leadership for inclusive education. The model aims to support analysis of the policy context and interactions between the structures and processes at different levels to ensure effective support for inclusive school leadership and development of appropriate competences. Key issues addressing competences for inclusive school leadership, support and professional development opportunities for inclusive school leaders and policy frameworks that support inclusive leadership across the whole education system are explored.

This paper reports on a current Agency project, Supporting Inclusive School Leadership (SISL), a cross-national project that considers how best to ensure that school leaders meet the needs of all learners in their school communities. The SISL project examines current theories of school leadership together with the core functions of school leaders in participating countries in order to develop a model specifically focused on inclusive school leadership.

Agency projects such as SISL focus on research findings and policy developments that support countries to chart their own course toward a common goal. This process of cross-national working permits member countries with their distinctive national, ethnic, cultural and linguistic diversities to work together on common goals. In this project an ecosystem model of inclusive education was adapted to reflect on the policy context needed to enable school leaders to fulfill the complex responsibilities associated with inclusive school development.

Although the Agency is strongly associated with the education of children with special educational needs and disabilities, all member countries have the shared vision to support inclusive education systems so that all learners of any age are provided with meaningful, high-quality educational opportunities in their local community. While its projects are firmly rooted in the 2006 UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, its work is also influenced by the concept of inclusion as promoted in the UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4) “to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.”

The authors investigate the implications of environmental, social and governance (ESG) practices of firms for the pricing of their credit default swaps (CDS). In doing so, the authors compare European and US firms and consider nonlinear and indirect effects. This complements the previous literature focusing on linear and direct effects using bond yields and credit ratings of US firms.

For this purpose, the authors apply fixed effects regressions on a comprehensive panel data set of US and European firms. Further, nonlinear and indirect effects are investigated utilizing quantile regressions and a path analysis.

The evidence indicates that higher ESG ratings mitigate credit risks of US and European firms from 2007 to 2019. The risk mitigation effect is U-shaped across ESG quantiles, which is consistent with opposing effects of growing stakeholder influence capacity and diminishing marginal returns on ESG investments. The authors further reveal a mediating indirect volatility channel that substantially amplifies the direct effect of ESG on credit risk. A one-standard-deviation improvement in ESG ratings is estimated to reduce CDS spreads of low, medium and high ESG firms by approximately 4%, 8% and 3%, respectively.

This is the first study to examine whether credit markets reflect regional differences between Europe and the US with regard to the ESG-CDS-relationship. In addition, this paper contributes to the existing literature by investigating differences in the response of CDS spreads across ESG quantiles and to study potential indirect channels connecting ESG and CDS spreads using structural credit risk variables.

Considering personality as changeable through a bottom-up process of altering states, habits and traits, constitutes a shift in the predominant paradigm within personality psychology. The purpose of this paper is to reconsider Bateson’s theory of learning and organizational triple-loop learning in light of this recent empirical evidence.

This paper uses a multi-disciplinary conceptual approach. Based on an integrative analysis of literature from recent work in personality psychology, four dimensions (process, content, time and context) are identified that allow linking personality change and triple-loop learning.

Identifying a bottom-up process of changing states, habits and traits as being central to change personality, allows for reconsidering Bateson’s theory of learning as a theory of personality development (Learning II) and personality change (Learning III). Functionally equivalent, organizational triple-loop learning is conceptualized as a change in an organization’s identity over time that may be facilitated through a change in responding to events and a change in the organization’s routines.

Interventions that change how organizations respond to events and that change the routines within an organization may be suitable to facilitate triple-loop learning in terms of changing organizational identity over time.

This paper contributes to the discussion on Bateson’s theory of learning and organizational triple-loop learning. As interest in personality change grows in organization studies, this paper aims to transfer these findings to organizational learning.