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.

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.

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.

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.

Research displays conflicting results regarding the assumed positive effects from acquisition experience on acquisition performance. In a multi-national sample, we move beyond simple counts of firm acquisitions to show the positive direct effects of experience for the development of acquisition integration capabilities. We also develop how types of knowledge (tacit or explicit), and different organizational designs (centralized vs. decentralized) influence the development of integration capabilities and acquisition performance. While tacit knowledge from prior acquisitions can directly improve acquisition performance, the effect of explicit knowledge on performance is fully mediated by an acquirer’s integration capability. Decentralized coordination significantly and differentially changes the role of tacit and explicit knowledge in developing an integration capability. By examining the roles of tacit and explicit knowledge, we begin to explain conflicting research results. For example, our results show knowledge can provide multiple paths to acquisition success for acquiring firms. Additional implications for management research and practice are provided.

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.

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.

There is an ongoing debate regarding the usefulness of management research to practice. Typically, two positions are taken, one where implications to practitioners in research is taken for granted and not problematized; one questioning the value of such prescriptions. Drawing on a heuristics approach, we suggest a path forward is to consider implications, at aggregate level, can be considered useful ‘rules of thumb.’ We assess the content from a decade of practice implications provided by acquisition research. We categorize and analyze managerial prescriptions into four broadly accepted schools of thought in this research stream, developing a portfolio of heuristics. This also allows us to suggest a different ontological status to practice implications as heuristics that can be of strategic value to firms. In discussing the value of implications compared to other sources available to practitioners, we argue for more implications, and suggest research can also benefit from a more integrative view of practice implications.

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.

How do firms and organizations remain competitive or increase their competitiveness under rapid and significant change? The global pandemic, with all its negative consequences, offers an ‘quasi experiment’ for studying the process and outcomes of how firms respond, adjust, or fail to adjust and/or respond to changing competitive conditions. Strategic management, a concept for the overarching view, offers a unique tool for bringing research together. This track, therefore, welcomes empirical and conceptual contributions on a broad range of topics that, broadly, connect to how firms strategize and strategically respond to uncertainties in their competitive landscape.