: This study addresses the following questions: (1) can organizations learn how to manage infrequent and heterogeneous tasks ? (2) If they can, then what are the mechanisms that might explain learning under these circumstances ?, and (3) what are the limitations under which these mechanisms operate ? A model based on explicit knowledge codification and tacit experience accumulation is submitted and tested using data from a sample of 183 acquisitions in the US banking industry. Measures of post-acquisition integration strategies and of preacquisition resource characteristics are included in the model. We find that tacit knowledge accumulation significantly impacts performance when the experiences are highly homogeneous, and that knowledge codification improves acquisition performance in the context of high post-acquisition integration, i.e. when the organizational challenge is particularly complex. Also, the level of integration between the two firms involved in the acquisition positive...

This paper examines the effects of resource complementarity and organizational compatibility on merger and acquisition (M&A) outcomes. We also explore the effect of firms ' previous M&A experiences. Our investigation focuses on two classes of events following M&As: organizational dissolution and involvement in subsequent M&As, with the firm continuance following the M&A as the “non-event. ” Using a multinomial logit model for repeated-event history analysis that reflects the dynamics of organizational evolution, we analyse 461 M&As in the history of the Dutch accounting industry. Our results show that compatibility is not associated with the dissolution rate but is strongly related with the probablity that a firm will engage in additional M&As. Resouce complementarity is negatively associated with the odds of dissolution and positively associated with the probability to engage in additional M&As. The results also indicate that previous M&A experience enhances both the dissolution rate and rate to engage in additional M&As. 2

: In a study of post-acquisition management practices in the U.S. commercial banking industry, we examine how firms codify their knowledge from previous acquisition experiences and routinize their post-acquisition decisions. We find that firms with higher levels of knowledge codification tend to integrate their acquired units more and to replace the existing top management team with higher probability. Also, acquirers tend to replicate their integration and resource replacement decisions irrespective of variations in the resource characteristics of their targets, suggesting strong tacit routinization effects. 3 Corporate acquisitions have been phenomena of considerable interest to scholars in strategic management, finance and economics for a long time. Despite the impressive amount of research devoted to the performance consequences of acquisitions, the strategic decisions adopted during the post-acquisition integration phase have received significantly less attention. As Haspeslagh...

Cultural differences are often used as explanations of organizational problems following mergers. This paper argues that this literature is to a large extent based on a realist epistemology where too little emphasis has been placed on the constructive processes. To partially bridge this gap, this study adopts a sensemaking approach to studying the (re)construction of cultural conceptions in the merger context. The study is based on extensive ethnographic material from eight cases of Finnish-Swedish mergers and acquisitions. The analysis of this material leads to a specification of three concurrent cultural sensemaking processes through which the top decision makers involved in the post-merger integration processes make sense of and enact cultural conceptions. First, this cultural sensemaking involves a search for rational understanding of cultural characteristics and differences. Second, cultural sensemaking also includes more or less suppressed emotional identification with either of the merging sides. Third, cultural sensemaking also involves purposeful manipulation of the cultural conceptions for more or less legitimate purposes. Based on this distinction, this study leads to specific propositions concerning how cultural conceptions are formed in post-merger organizations.

The purpose of this research was to develop a strategy for the management of conflict between Fire and EMS personnel in the Edmonton Emergency Response Department. The research was undertaken employing both an historical research methodology and an action research methodology. Document analysis and interviews were used to gain an understanding of the premerger motives. Management literature on amalgamation (mergers and acquisitions) and on theories of conflict management was examined in order to develop an organizational strategy to provide direction in the development of a specific set of guidelines or tools that may be used by managers to resolve or diffuse situations where conflict negatively affected organizational performance. The following research questions were pursued 1. What insights can management literature or research provide regarding the amalgamation of two organizations and the underlying reasons for conflict? 2. What methods or strategies for conflict resolution and conflict

Abstract 1 Mergers and acquisitions are not only economic decisions but can also be understood as social processes. Acquisition researchers often have a financial argument to justify their research, no matter their research focus. Social processes are mostly studied to find out why the acquisition failed and to find a formula to avoid future failures. In the literature one will often find representations of acquiring managers rather than the whole organisation. One could therefore describe most acquisition research as single-voiced rather than multi-voiced. Another common focus in the literature is that of integration. Acquisition researchers often describe the acquisition process as a unifying process. They prescribe that managers should manage the integration process so that the merging companies should become one with a consensus culture. The focus of this review is to identify a gap, the lack of certain social processes and of multi-voiced representation in that acquisition literature; that is, statements of ambiguities and ambiguous situations. 1 This review is based on chapter two and three in Risberg (1999) Ambiguities Thereafter – An interpretive approach to

Although corporate acquisitions are on the rise, not much is known about the micro processes of knowledge and technology transfer after the deal is closed. The goal of this present research is to add to this knowledge by reviewing the literature while addressing two questions: ‘what enables knowledge transfer in acquisitions ’ and ‘what can organizations do to manage the knowledge transfer more successfully?’. The paper presents an organizational learning perspective on corporate acquisitions and discusses how organizations could learn from past and present acquisitions. 1.

the problems and opportunities facing the financial services industry in its search for competitive excellence. The Center's research focuses on the issues related to managing risk at the firm level as well as ways to improve productivity and performance. The Center fosters the development of a community of faculty, visiting scholars and Ph.D. candidates whose research interests complement and support the mission of the Center. The Center works closely with industry executives and practitioners to ensure that its research is informed by the operating realities and competitive demands facing industry participants as they pursue competitive excellence. Copies of the working papers summarized here are available from the Center. If you would like to learn more about the Center or become a member of our research community, please let us know of your interest.

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In this paper we apply the concept of inter-organizational fit to the use of global account management programs in multinational corporations. It is predicted that greater fit between vendor and customer on a variety of strategic as well as structural aspects will result in higher performance of the relationship. This is contrasted with a bargaining perspective approach to managing customer relationships. Support for the hypotheses is found using a survey of 106 global account managers in 16 multinationals. 2