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Over the last few decades, management has witnessed a proliferation of research on mergers and acquisitions (M&As) and strategic alliances (SAs). Although both fields have been widely studied, the relationship between the two bodies of literature has not been sufficiently explored. Despite the enormous commonality between both phenomena in terms of the drivers behind them and of the critical success factors associated with the M&A and alliance process management, scholars from the two fields have rarely exchanged findings and insights, even though they may be highly relevant to each other. M&A and SA research remain mostly separated from each other, thus minimizing the ability for more mutually beneficial complementary and synergetic knowledge sharing effects.

This chapter synthesizes and compares existing theoretical perspectives from the M&A and SA literatures and identifies opportunities for future research and knowledge cross fertilization between the two fields. Building upon previous review studies about M&A and SA literatures, the authors develop a comparative longitudinal review of both literatures published in top management journals over a 27-year period. For that purpose, the authors resort to machine learning algorithms to discover thematic patterns that may have gone unnoticed by using traditional review methods.

By highlighting some of the shortcomings that limit the authors’ theoretical and practical understandings, they challenge scholars from both fields (M&A and SA) to go beyond what they think they know from compartmentalized received theory, and draw upon novel and meaningful ideas, concepts, and theoretical approaches from “the other side of the fence.” The authors believe that such a dialog will facilitate further theoretical exploration and empirical investigation of both phenomena and produce insights that will influence the practical management of M&A and SAs.

The purpose of this paper is to describe further developments on a novel formulation of the boundary element method (BEM) for inelastic problems using the dual reciprocity method (DRM) but using object-oriented programming (OOP). As the BEM formulation generates a domain integral due to the inelastic stresses, the DRM is employed in a modified form using polyharmonic spline approximating functions with polynomial augmentation. These approximating functions produced accurate results in BEM applications for a range of problems tested, and have been shown to converge linearly as the order of the function increases.

A programming class named DRMOOP, written in C++ language and based on OOP, was developed in this research. With such programming, general matrix equations can be easily established and applied to different inelastic problems. A vector that accounts for the influence of the inelastic strains on the displacements and boundary forces is obtained.

The C++ DRMOOP class has been implemented and tested with the BEM formulation applied to classical elastoplastic problem and the results are reported at the end of the paper.

An object-oriented technology and the C++ DRMOOP class applied to elastoplastic problems.

A vast amount of research has been carried out to help us understand the main factors influencing mergers and acquisitions (M&A) performance. Although the existing body of knowledge focuses mainly on macro-level factors, there is an increasing interest from scholars and practitioners in understanding the micro-foundational factors occurring at individual and team levels. This chapter focuses on the importance of emotions – a central facet in individual reactions to workplace events – in M&A processes. To this end, the authors carried out a multi-phased search for articles on micro-foundations in M&A settings published by Business and Management (B/M) and Organizational Behavior and Psychology (O/P) journals. The authors reviewed 41 papers and used the circumplex model to identify and categorize 19 themes related to individual emotions involved in M&A processes in terms of positive/negative valence and high/low activation. The findings show that scholars mainly assume a risk mitigation perspective and focus on themes related to change resistance (negative emotions with high activation) by providing prescriptions on how negative emotions could be mitigated to avoid eroding acquisition performance. Hence, the authors suggest that (a) there should be more efforts to integrate different streams of literature, namely between the strategic and operational/behavioral areas of knowledge and (b) future research should focus on understanding how positive emotions like change proactivity (positive emotions with high activation) might be essential to enhance acquisition performance.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a methodology based on TODIM (an acronym in Portuguese for interactive and multicriteria decision-making) approach for the selection of the best alternative in the context of multi criteria group decision-making (MCGDM) problems under possibilistic uncertainty in interval-valued Pythagorean fuzzy (IVPF) environment.

In this paper, IVPF-TODIM method is proposed. Some new point operator-based similarity measures (POSMs) for IVPF sets (IVPFSs) are introduced which have the capability to reduce the degree of uncertainty of the elements in the universe of discourse corresponding to IVPFS. Then the newly defined POSMs are used to compute the measure of relative dominance of each alternative over other alternatives in the IVPF-TODIM context. Finally, generalized mean aggregation operator is used to find the best alternative.

As the TODIM method is used to solve the MCGDM problems under uncertainty, POSMs are developed by using three parameters which can control the effect of decision-makers’ psychological perception under risk.

The decision values are used in IVPF numbers (IVPFNs) format.

The proposed method is capable to solve real-life MCGDM problems with not only IVPFNs format but also with interval-valued intuitionistic fuzzy numbers.

As per authors’ concern, no approach using TODIM with IVPFNs is found in literature to solve MCGDM problems under uncertainty. The final judgment values of alternatives using the extended TODIM methodology are highly corroborate in compare to the results of existing methods, which proves its great potentiality in solving MCGDM problems under risk.

This paper delves into the mechanism of the contingency framework for foreign entry mode decisions and identifies two essential tasks that jointly determine the outcome of the entry mode decision. It then recognizes a critical weakness in previous research pertaining to the comparison of entry modes along a key decision criterion, the degree of control. Existing studies generally treat equity involvement as the only source of entrant control, while largely ignoring non‐equity sources of control (i.e., bargaining power and trust). Non‐equity sources of control, when underutilized, amount to missed opportunities, increased resource commitments, and heightened risk exposures in foreign markets. Drawing from a pluralism perspective in transaction and relationship governance, the author presents a more integrative method for the ranking of entry modes along the degree of control. The central message is that companies entering foreign markets should make an earnest effort to identify trust and bargaining power situations and fully utilize their control potential in making entry mode decisions.

Previous empirical results on the relationship between internationalization and firm performance have been mixed. Both monotonic and curvilinear relationships have been reported. Most recent studies have focused on different types of curvilinear relationships, such as inverted Ushaped, standard U‐shaped, and multiple waves. This paper utilizes a more current sample of firms than prior studies have used and decomposes traditional financial performance measures, applying two different measures of degree of internationalization, country scope and foreign sales as a percent of total sales (FSTS), to measure the effects on financial performance of different degrees of internationalization. Several financial performance measures, including traditional indexes (ROE and ROA) and a decomposition of traditional ones (Profit Margin, Total Asset Turnover), are examined.

Previous theoretical explanations and empirical analyses of the multinationality‐performance relationship have produced mixed arguments and results. Linear and inverted U‐shaped relationships have been theorized and confirmed empirically. Recent research has theorized that there is a three‐stage, sigmoid relationship between multinationality and performance. We contribute to the debate by showing that the impact of multinationality depends on the time dimension incorporated in the performance measure; that is, the net benefits from multinationality are likely to be higher in the longer term. The results from our sample of US manufacturing multinationals indicate that there is a three‐stage, sigmoid multinationality‐performance relationship.

Human resource (HR) process research emerged as a response to questions about how (bundles of) HR practices related to organizational outcomes. The goal of HR process research is to explain variability in employee and organization outcomes by focusing on how HR practices are intended (adopted) by senior managers, the way that these HR practices are implemented and communicated by line managers, and how employees perceive, understand, and attribute these HR practices. In the first part of this chapter, we present a review of 20 years of HR process research from the start, to how it developed, and is now maturing. Within the body of HR process research, several different research theoretical streams have emerged, which are largely studied in isolation without benefiting from each other. Therefore, in the second part of this chapter, we draw on previous work to propose a staged process model in which we integrate the different research streams of HR process research, recognizing contingencies in the model. This leads us to an agenda for future research and practical implications in the final part of the chapter.

This chapter presents a review of the state-of-the-art in the employee perspective on mergers and acquisitions (M&As). The authors’ aim is to enhance the understanding of the role of employees in M&As. This chapter contributes by presenting a synthesis of how the employee perspective has been studied by describing the methods, the context (industry and geographic location), and publication outlets. Furthermore, this chapter contributes by synthesizing the employee perspective literature into five distinct research streams: (1) employee reactions; (2) culture; (3) communication; (4) knowledge; and (5) speed. The authors reflect on the main findings of each stream and conclude by proposing future directions for research on the role of employees in M&As to (re)generate interest in the topic.