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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 study aims to examine the effects of guanxi and harmonious leadership on acquisition performance and the role of sociocultural integration as a mediating mechanism impacting the above links, with a focus on Chinese cross-border acquisitions in The Netherlands.

Data were collected through survey questionnaire with 91 respondents who work in Dutch-acquired companies. Regression analysis was used for exploring the relationship.

The study finds that both guanxi and harmonious leadership are positive to acquisition performance, and sociocultural integration represents a significant mediating mechanism by which guanxi and harmonious leadership can result in improved acquisition performance.

This study contributes to culture research by emphasizing the clarification of specific Chinese cultural values and cultural practices in cross-border acquisitions and examining the role of guanxi and harmonious leadership in acquisition performance. Meanwhile, this study helps to unveil Chinese cross-border acquisitions in The Netherlands by examining the mediating force – sociocultural integration.

This study concerns two aspects of the integration process critical for the success of acquisitions: (1) levels of human integration and task integration and (2) speeds of human integration and task integration. The purpose of this study is to examine the interaction effects of human/task integration level and human integration speed advantage on acquisition performance.

This study collected data of companies in the Taiwanese high-tech industries at the financial, organizational and industrial levels to examine the proposed hypotheses. Corporate financial and patent data were collected from the Taiwan Securities and Futures Commission databases and the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) databases. The organizational level data were collected from 142 publicly traded related acquisitions from 2008 to 2009 in the Taiwanese high-tech industries.

The results show that (1) a high level of human integration positively affects technological performance; (2) the interaction term of human integration level and human integration speed advantage (i.e., relatively faster human integration coupled with slower task integration) positively affects technological performance; and (3) the interaction term of task integration level and human integration speed advantage positively affects technological performance.

The originality of this study lies in advancing our understanding of how complex interactions between human/task integration level and human integration speed advantage affect acquisition performance.

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.

Post-acquisition integration matters for overall M&A outcome. However within this phase researchers have struggled to identify clear links between integration activities and post-acquisition outcome. This may be due to using organisational levels of analysis, where sub-organisational issues serve to confound findings. In order to unpack the post-acquisition phase, and to delve more deeply into organisations, this paper adopts a more granular perspective on integration activities by focusing upon the building blocks of organisations. Specifically we investigate ordinary routine amalgamation and their impact upon meta-routine outcome during acquisition integration. Drawing upon two longitudinal integration cases and using ‘retroductive’ analysis, two types of amalgamation are identified, namely ‘combination’ and ‘superimposition’. We find that, while the basic nature of routines, such as multiplicity and nestedness, inhibit routine amalgamation, external interference in the form of context, structural change or introduction of additional routines is needed to stabilise amalgamated routines. From our findings we are able to suggest a number of testable propositions about the factors that influence the amalgamation of routines. This empirical study contributes to the M&A literature by opening up the ‘black box’ of post-acquisition integration by providing details at a granular level of what actually happens during integrations.

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.

Mergers have increased at a fast rate in the last 10 years. Nevertheless, practitioners and consultants point out the low rate of success for mergers. Considering this paradoxical situation, it would appear opportune to question the possibility of developing a specific competence within an organization for carrying out mergers and acquisitions. This research aims to propose a model for analyzing the development of such a competence. This paper presents a study of competence-building according to two aspects: level of recognition by the organization and level of use. The study model defines four forms that competence may take: ad hoc responses, capitalization, institutionalization, and dynamic competence. This model is used for the study of the development by the Lafarge Group of a competence in managing cultural integration after international mergers and acquisitions.

Most research of post-acquisition integration examines integration of individual business units. The research pays less attention to corporate level integration processes, by which we mean the standardization of integration routines and synchronization of integration activities across a firm’s business units. We argue that corporate level acquisition activities and post-acquisition integration processes strongly influence long term corporate performance, particularly as a firm which comprises interdependent business units becomes geographically diffuse. Acquisitions tend to increase system diversity and goal diversity across business units. Some goal diversity is beneficial, but excessive goal diversity and the existence of system diversity can reduce long run corporate performance by requiring greater managerial effort and increasing the opportunity cost of managerial efforts. The negative effects become stronger as a firm becomes geographically diffuse or if business units are interdependent. Firms that employ active corporate level integration processes – particularly firms that acquire frequently and have interdependent business units – can enhance the benefits and eliminate some of the problems of diversity.

Collaboration and acquisition have traditionally been observed as two alternative strategies when accessing external technologies. However, real option scholars have recently argued that firms can also engage in transitional technology sourcing trajectories where collaboration and acquisition are used as complementary strategies. While these real option scholars have identified factors that influence when partners are likely to shift from collaboration to acquisition, they remain silent on how such a transition can be effectively managed. Based on a multiple case study of four transitional technology sourcing trajectories between one new entrepreneurial and one established firm, this study therefore explores how the pre-acquisition collaboration stage and the post-acquisition integration are related to each other. Findings suggest that entrepreneurial companies may use the pre-acquisition collaboration stage as a period to evaluate the goodwill of the established partner. In addition, we point to the presence of pre-acquisition integration efforts and the extent of strategic convergence during the pre-acquisition collaboration stage as factors that substantially influence the success of the post-acquisition integration process in transitional governance trajectories.

Despite the recent slow down in overall activity, acquisitions continue to be a popular growth strategy used by firms competing in a globally competitive marketplace (Duck, Sirower & Dumas, 2002). At the same time, acquisitions are more of a complex phenomenon than ever in that the conditions under which they enhance or destroy firm value still remain unclear despite the wealth of acquisition studies in finance and management. In fact, recent studies by several major consulting and advisory services firms provide evidence that at a minimum one-third to one-half of these deals fail to achieve anticipated benefits, cost savings and other outcomes (KPMG, 1999; Mergerstat, 2000; PricewaterhouseCoopers, 2000). Even more alarming, the latest reports released by Booz Allen and Hamilton (2001) and BusinessWeek (Henry, 2002) indicate that this “failure” to deliver announced benefits and improvements in shareholder wealth increases to over 60% when examining large M&As which typically bring together two firms that not only compete in similar product or market domains but also have comparable size positions. Thus, the question lingers…What distinguishes those acquisitions that are successful in meeting intended goals and performance improvements from those that are not successful?