Integration decisions are not isolated, as they are embedded in an organizational context. Using a multi-country sample (Nordics, German speaking Europe, and China) of small- and medium-sized acquirers, we explore the influence of firm strategic orientations on how managers conceptualize acquisitions, make integration decisions, and impact acquisition performance. Both market- and entrepreneurial-oriented firms coordinate activities following an acquisition, but they do so differently. Entrepreneurial-oriented acquirers use human integration to align target managers with common goals and reinforce their decision-making autonomy. In contrast, market-oriented acquirers strive for functional integration and use human integration to reduce target firm managers' decision-making autonomy. Thus, achieving coordination after an acquisition can follow different paths that are closely aligned with the strategic orientation of the acquirer. In other words, different strategic orientations guide managers' decisions, resulting in different paths to acquisition success.

We analyze acquisition effects at an ecosystem level, reflecting growing interest in how a firm’s relations with its environment change following an acquisition. Research often takes either a stakeholder perspective, or a competitive dynamics perspective. The former considers the interests of groups and organizations impacted by an acquisition that would generally prefer success, and the latter focuses on contested external relations. We bridge these perspectives using ecosystems that view a firm’s environment as simultaneously benevolent and competitive. The result offers an integration of a wide range of actors with spanning symbiotic, coopetitive, and competitive relationships. In summarizing the competitive effects from acquisitions and on an acquiring firm, we propose the term ecosystem acquisitions to show how overlooked effects are likely more important than research currently recognizes. We contribute to several streams of research and offer implications for practitioners.

Continued use of acquisitions despite evidence that they do not improve firm performance suggests that challenges associated with acquisitions may be underestimated by managers. We examine how employee resistance is influenced by acquisition integration and how it results in lower acquisition performance. Specifically, we examine different impacts of task and human integration on employee resistance in a sample of 92 Nordic mid-size firms. Task integration focuses on achieving synergies from increased efficiency; however, it can increase employee resistance, leading to lower acquisition performance, which is exacerbated by slow integration. Meanwhile, human integration can reduce employee resistance, and this effect is stronger for experienced acquirers. Our results support the importance of considering both task and human integration, as their influence on employee resistance varies. Additional implications for management research and practice are identified.

Research has yet to explain how firms with acquisition experience can improve their success with acquisitions. With a multi-national sample, we study how acquisition experience can lead to integration capabilities that impact acquisition outcomes. We argue that different types of knowledge (tacit or explicit) and organizational designs (more centralized vs. less centralized) influence the development of integration capabilities. We demonstrate that tacit and explicit knowledge provide multiple paths to acquisition success for acquiring firms, and this can explain conflicting findings in existing research. More specifically, less centralized organizational designs lower the effectiveness of tacit knowledge in developing an integration capability, but centralization is effective for explicit knowledge. Additional implications for management research and practice are provided.

An almost exclusive focus on financial value has provided a biased and incomplete view of acquisition outcomes. We remedy this by challenging the assumption that acquisitions should primarily serve an acquiring firm's shareholders, as other actors need to be considered. Specifically, we propose acquisition research should also consider outcomes for additional actors, or subjective and dynamic perceptions of non-financial value. To do this, we introduce the idea of acquisitions as embedded in an ecosystem, and propose the term acquisition ecosystem. We disentangle a multitude of outcomes in acquisition research and how they can be affected by acquisitions. Through our analysis, we provide novel and complementary perspectives to the dominating financial value outlook in acquisition research to inspire additional study.

Acquisition research is intensely concerned with how acquisitions affect economic value, primarily looking at shareholder value, while overlooking or ascribing other values a subordinate role. We argue that this is unnecessarily restrictive and leaves out important values in acquisitions. To remedy this state of affairs, we critically engage with the notion of value in acquisitions with the aim of enriching acquisition research by recognizing a multitude of values present in acquisitions but largely unrecognized as such in research. Arguing value is an umbrella construct, we adopt a stakeholder approach and conduct a problematizing review focusing on key studies of economic and non-economic values in acquisitions, also enriched with other acquisition and business literature. Apart from challenging the underpinning assumptions of the dominating view of value denoting acquiring shareholders’ financial wealth, we identify non-economic marginalized values that are only rarely studied, including justice or gender equality, and pertinent neglected values, including the natural environment. We propose a research agenda around a broader range of dynamic, multifaceted values.

Despite extensive interest in how acquisitions can increase firm competitiveness, research has given competitive retaliation to acquisitions limited attention. Consistent with process research on managerial decisions during acquisitions, we simultaneously consider the effects of retaliation and internal integration decisions on retaliation effectiveness and acquisition performance. From an international survey in Europe, we demonstrate how managerial integration decisions and the external environment influence retaliation effectiveness to acquisitions and their performance. Specifically, longer integration duration and an open merger and acquisition (M&A) strategy are associated with increased retaliation effectiveness. Meanwhile, a high level of industry M&A activity lowers it. We also confirm that increased retaliation effectiveness is associated with lower acquisition performance. These findings help balance an internal focus in acquisition research, and they clarify the performance implications of acquirer choices that may lead to competitive retaliation effectiveness, as predicted by competitive dynamics research. 

Although having grown significantly to constitute a strong influence in several fields of business research, research on corporate acquisitions still needs fresh voices. Research on acquisitions is dominated by functionalist studies searching for ways to improve financial outcomes. In contrast, this paper draws on a narrative approach to provide a new perspective to corporate acquisitions. We focus on decision-makers and how a metaphor that highlights human foibles connected to sins can offer a new understanding of corporate acquisitions. Engaging with acquisition literature and underpinning our argument with examples from well-known acquisitions, provides a new way of understanding commonly identified but socially unaccepted outcomes from acquisitions generally described as unintended and unwanted.

Despite its intuitive appeal, acquisition experience has not shown a clear benefit to acquirers, and we argue the applicability of acquisition experience depends on goals and context. Using survey data, we consider the effects of applying codified experience for two common acquisition goals involving knowledge transfer and market expansion. Our findings reveal a 'double-edged sword' effect, where on one hand, codification mitigates negative effects of industry rivalry on knowledge transfer. However, on the other hand, codification amplifies negative effects of industry rivalry on market expansion and internal turmoil on knowledge transfer. Beyond demonstrating the importance of goals and context contingencies for determining acquisition experience effect, our results reconcile conflicting research findings to identify when codified experience is beneficial in acquisitions.

Applying sensemaking research to acquisition integration, we outline factors that influence employee resistance to acquisitions. While integration is widely viewed as important to acquisition outcomes, there is limited systematic study of how employees react to the integration process. Using survey data from Chinese acquirers and applying partial least squares structural equation modeling, we examine what changes with human and task integration with the speed of when changes are made to explore relationships with employee resistance. Consistent with a temporal perspective of acquisition processes and sensemaking we find slower task integration may mitigate employee resistance to acquisition integration. However, employee resistance to the speed that changes are made likely varies for who is involved, suggesting different roles for top and middle managers. Specifically, middle management involvement with slow human integration and top management involvement with fast task integration reduces employee resistance following an acquisition.