This paper presents a model that complements the research stream of transaction cost economics with the dynamic capabilities approach. The paper shows that, even though technological alliances involving specific assets deployed in emerging industries are exposed to high transaction costs, they possess attributes that make them attractive. First, they facilitate the creation of tacit competencies, and second, they reduce the uncertainty arising from technological innovation and regulatory changes. The model is empirically tested in the hazardous waste management industry by using primary data collected through the use of questionnaires. The method links governance structure choices to managers' perceptions of the uncertainty surrounding the acquisition of technology

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.