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This study aims to explore the effect of chief executive officer education on firms’ action timing and acquisition performance in industry merger waves. In addition, this study investigated the moderating influence of CEO duality and firm cash flow on the relationship between education and entry timing.

Following the methodology for determining merger waves in previous studies, the authors identified 16 industry merger waves of Chinese listed firms from 2008 to 2019. Multiple linear regression was employed to examine the hypotheses.

The results showed that higher CEO education was associated with early participation in merger waves. CEO duality negatively moderated the education-entry timing relation. The effect of CEO education on entry timing was more pronounced when firms had higher cash flow. Moreover, more educated CEOs materially enhanced acquisition performance in merger waves.

Entry timing in industry merger waves has important implications, as early movers establish competitive advantages and achieve higher acquisition performance. However, the managerial characteristics determining entry timing have not received adequate attention. Meanwhile, studies examining the effect of CEO education on acquisitions are limited. This study explored the effect of CEO education on firms’ entry timing and acquisition performance in merger waves, thereby contributing to the literature on merger waves and managerial characteristics. This study’s findings regarding the moderators of the education-entry timing relation enrich the literature on corporate governance and agency theory.

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 speed of integration has been a salient and longstanding topic in the literature on managing mergers and acquisitions. Yet over the decades, speed has also been the subject of extensive debate. While many have advocated for fast integration, others have recommended a more measured pace. In this chapter, the authors reflect on the discussion by canvasing the variety of views on the speed of integration. The work is positioned at the nexus of the literature on mergers with that on stakeholders, in particular its attention to urgency in stakeholder management. It approaches urgency in mergers and acquisitions as a “dilemma of stake,” a new lens on a well-established but challenging topic. The study draws on ethnographic research to examine accounts of speed of integration in a New Zealand public sector merger. The chapter juxtaposes varied views on the topic against the respective arguments within the merger literature. It examines the overarching themes of “go slow” and the “need for speed” by attending to the tensions between a prosocial service ethos on the one hand and a managerialist ethos on the other. The explication of the respective dilemmas of stake shows how participants articulate their views on urgency both in terms of its effects on their individual professional role, their own stake, as well as in terms of the effects on employees as internal stakeholders. The analysis also explores the role of internal and external context in shaping the views on urgency in merger integration. The work concludes by outlining an agenda for future research.

Despite enormous literature on Human Resource Management (HRM) practices in the context of Mergers and Acquisitions (M&As), researchers have not come up with a synthesis that integrates the role and importance of HRM practices during M&As. This study aims to identify, analyse and synthesise existing literature to discover associated HRM practices that facilitate organisational change during M&As.

Bibliometric analysis is performed using 473 research articles entailing 871 authors from 62 countries (published in Scopus and WoS listed journals), followed by a thematic cluster analysis using bibliographic coupling. The analysis is performed using different means as citation analysis, cluster analysis and keyword analysis to reveal the most significant publications, authors, keywords, trends and future research questions.

The results are primarily descriptive and aim at capturing a panoramic view of what was already written on the topic so far. The bibliometric analysis is conducted using different means like citation analysis, cluster analysis and keyword analysis to reveal the most significant publications, notable authors, keywords, current research trends and future research questions. Further, the bibliographic coupling analysis led to the identification of the following six clusters: (1) coping strategies during and post-M&As; (2) changes in individual and organisational identification during and post-M&As; (3) role of cultural and transformational leadership in M&As success; (4) HRM practices to develop employee capabilities post-M&As; (5) case studies and success stories of M&As; and (6) organisational readiness for M&As.

This study has theoretical and practical implications and suggests future research directions. The authors also propose an abstruse model for HRM practices during M&A process for further investigation.

This is the first bibliometric study to explore the vast extant literature in M&A research related to the role of HRM practices in the execution of successful M&As.

The purpose of this study is to investigate a framework for knowledge retention to support business continuity in cross-border mergers of the telecommunications industry in Lesotho.

This study applied a qualitative case study, with data collected through interviews from a purposively selected sample of staff members who held managerial positions. Information in this study was partially extracted from the PhD thesis of Dr Tseole ET supervised by Prof Ngulube P at the University of South Africa completed in 2021.

The study discovered that a considerable amount of knowledge may have been lost because employees who either left the organisation or those who were apparently forced to resign during the process had left without any proper knowledge retention arrangements.

The framework proposed in this study may be used in framing future studies as a theoretical framework. The study also provides new literature for review and discussion of background in future related studies.

The framework provided in the study may be used as a benchmark in the knowledge management industry and/or organisations for policy development or improvements and implementation of knowledge retention strategies.

Through recommendations and framework provided by this study, organisations will be able to improve their services to their sphere of influence in the surrounding communities. So, community will be receiving an improved and good service at all the times.

A framework for facilitating knowledge retention in the cross-border mergers of the telecommunications industry is therefore proposed and the researchers believe it will be helpful to the organisation for improving knowledge retention going forward, particularly in the merger process.

Emerging market multinational companies have been vigorous in pursuing inorganic growth through cross-border acquisitions (CBAs). The fundamental studies till now have portrayed that rapid internationalization through CBAs tends to create value for these emerging market firms (EMFs) in the short term. However, there is an ambiguity about whether these firms endure better performance in the long term. The purpose of this study is to assess the long-term (ex-post) financial and operating performance of EMFs involved in overseas acquisitions before the COVID-19 pandemic hit the world economy.

CBAs completed by Indian and Chinese companies constitute the sample of the study. The performance has been analysed during the pre-COVID period spanning 17 years from 2001 to 2017. A comprehensive set of 14 financial ratios has been used to represent change (improvement/decline) in enterprises’ post-acquisition operating performance; these ratios have been divided into four broad groups: profitability, efficiency, solvency and liquidity ratios.

The performance of Indian companies has deteriorated significantly after the acquisition. However, there has been no change (deterioration/improvement), subsequent to CBAs, in the profitability of Chinese firms.

The findings of the study support that firms from emerging economies exploit CBAs as a “springboard” to obtain strategic assets including intangible resources and brands rather than to achieve synergies through economies of scale and scope. Apparently, outbound acquisitions by emerging economy firms are not driven by cost-reduction or revenue-generation activities.

None of the studies, to the best knowledge of the authors, has carried out performance analysis using a comprehensive set of financial ratios. The comparative study of two emerging economies is another valuable addition to the existing literature. The study holds the potential to serve as the benchmark to assess the performance of CBAs executed after COVID-19.

This study aims to develop a new integrated decision-making framework specifically designed to address complexity and uncertainty for project portfolio management. It particularly focuses on managing portfolios in a post-merger context. The paper portrays a normative and prescriptive approach to effectively creating a well-balanced project portfolio in a post-merger scenario.

This study introduces hyper-project portfolio frame as a prospective methodology for evaluating post-merger portfolios. The proposed method especially addresses the challenges associated with integration following a merger.

Hyper-project portfolio frame provides fundamental leaps in post-merger project portfolios. The frame gives opportunities to check consistency with policy, organizational scalability, flexibility and product diversity. It also underpins achieving the strategic objectives of mergers and acquisitions (M&As).

The literature synthesis is approached from an interpretative standpoint. The research incorporates discussions and comparative studies from the relevant literature and introduces a novel approach. Additionally, new descriptive studies can expand the proposed process-oriented decision-making. Moreover, this research does not consider hostile takeovers.

Nested in content and process-oriented fashion, the frame provides suitable prequalification analysis for portfolios in a post-merger under the concepts of complexity, uncertainty, risk and value.

The purpose of this paper is to systematically examine and organize the literature that has explored the effects of several environmental conditions (ECs) on mergers and acquisitions (M&As), in particular highlighting the increasing role of protectionism.

The systematic literature review methodology was applied for the purpose of identifying, analyzing and interrelating specific ECs that affect M&As, thereby underlining and elucidating the requisite role of protectionism. Specifically, this research is based on 51 methodically selected peer-reviewed articles published from 1991 to 2020.

The research summarizes and assesses the current state of relevant literature through comprehensive and coherent descriptive and thematic analysis. The proposed conceptual framework allows us to recognize the connections between M&As and external conditions, highlighting varying degrees of study and in-depth analysis across the different areas under consideration.

This study contributes to original and significant knowledge, by developing a conceptual framework that descriptively classifies existing knowledge; by defining refining and explicating the theoretical foundations for scholars to build on; by identifying the research gaps and proposing effective avenues for impactful further research; and by presenting practitioners and policymakers with a practical guide to implementation.

Extending the springboard perspective with the resource dependence theory, the authors posit that cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&As) are a new channel for emerging economy firms (EEFs) to enhance their technology capabilities. This study aims to examine the impact of cross-border M&As initiated by EEFs on their technology augmentation vis-à-vis matched domestic M&A cases and investigate the factors influencing the difference in post-merger innovation capability.

This paper estimates the post-acquisition innovation capability of acquirers from emerging economies (EEs) that engage in cross-border M&As. To remove possible selection bias, the authors leverage a difference-in-difference-style approach in combination with a matched sample constructed by pairing each cross-border M&A case with a similar domestic deal. The data set contains 266 cross-border M&As and 266 matched domestic M&A deals between 2003 and 2011, whereby acquirers are based in 6 EEs and targets are in 36 countries consisting of both EEs and advanced economies (AEs).

The present empirical results show that cross-border M&As engaged by EEFs are an important engine for improving EEFs’ innovation capability through technology augmentation. The main empirical results are as follows. First, compared with matched domestic acquirers with similar characteristics, EE cross-border M&As have a positive effect on innovation capability. Second, the positive effect of the EEFs’ cross-border M&As relative to the matched domestic M&As on innovation capability is driven largely by cross-border M&As with targets in AEs. Third, the increase in post-M&A innovation capability of the EE cross-border acquirers comes mainly from deals where targets are based in countries with relatively superior human capital and innovation capability than those of the acquirers.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first systematic study of whether cross-border M&As serve as an effective channel of technology augmentation for EE acquirers compared to matched domestic acquirers with similar characteristics.

This paper investigates the puzzle of mergers and acquisitions’ (M&A) long-term performance through the strategic management perspective. The authors measure the M&A capability construct and test its relationship with the long-term performance of the firms.

The study employs a natural language processing (NLP) methodology to quantify unstructured data from 564 annual reports and 2,602 M&A synopses from January 01, 2013 to December 31, 2016. The authors combine qualitative document analysis with a quantitative method using a multiple regression analysis model.

Among serial acquirers, M&A capability positively relates to long-term firm performance measured by both return on equity and price-to-book value. The authors also find that the size of the company and the number of acquisitions influence the M&A capability, confirming previous results in the literature.

Detailed M&A management plans are usually confidential and not fully reported. Future studies could employ enhanced artificial intelligence tools to measure the M&A capability construct beyond filing reports, encompassing interviews, social media posts, press releases and other unstructured data sources.

Firms can improve their M&A capability by understanding the underlying foundation of the construct provided in the research. Additionally, researchers can build on the methodology employed using advanced NLP tools to measure M&A capability.

Improving their M&A capability would allow firms to better choose their targets and conduct a superior integration process, which could prevent distressing mergers, unnecessary negative social impacts and culture disruption. As a result, the ensuing organization would be stronger, and the long-term performance would improve.

This study addresses gaps in the literature on M&A performance and provides a new empirical method to measure the M&A capability.