Mergers and Acquisitions in Practice

The growth in mergers and acquisitions (M&A) activity around the world masks a high rate of failure. M&A can provide companies with many benefits, but in the optimism and excitement of the deal many of the challenges are often overlooked. This comprehensive collection, bringing together an international team of contributors, moves beyond the theory to focus on the practical elements of mergers and acquisitions.

This hands-on, step-by-step volume provides strategies, frameworks, guidelines, and ample examples for managing and optimizing M&A performance, including:

• ways to analyze different types of synergy;
• understanding and analyzing cultural difference along corporate and national cultural dimensions, using measurement tools;
• using negotiation, due diligence, and planning to analyze the above factors; making use of this data during negotiation, screening, planning, agreement, and when deciding on post-merger integration approaches.

Students, researchers, and managers will find this text a vital resource when it comes to understanding this key facet of the international business world.

List of figures

List of tables

Notes on contributors

1 Mergers and acquisitions in practice: a state-of-art and future directions

Shlomo Y. Tarba, Sir Cary L. Cooper, Riikka M. Sarala, and Mohammad F. Ahammad

2 Motives for European mergers and acquisitions: analysis of pre-merger press announcements and post-merger interviews

Agyenim Boateng, George Lordofos, and Keith W. Glaister

3 Motives for cross-border mergers and acquisitions: perspective of UK firms

Mohammad F. Ahammad, Shlomo Y. Tarba, Keith W. Glaister, Ian P. L. Kwan, Riikka M. Sarala, and Luiz Montanheiro

4 Strategic mergers in the public sector: comparing universities and hospitals

Rómulo Pinheiro, Timo Aarrevaara, Laila Nordstrand Berg, Lars Geschwind, and Dag Olaf Torjesen

5 Chinese cross-border M&A into industrialized countries: the case of Chinese acquisitions in Germany

Marina Schmitz, Fabian Jintae Froese, and Winno V. Wangenheim

6 Post-merger integration in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries: a practical approach

Lars Schweizer

7 Human resource management in the context of mergers and acquisitions

Fang Lee Cooke

8 The role of human resource management practices in mergers and acquisitions

Sut I Wong, Elizabeth Solberg, Paulina Junni, and Steffen Robert Giessner

9 How do communication and cultural differences explain post-merger identification? Evidence from two merged dairy firms

David Kroon

10 Multiple shared identities in cross-border M&As

Anna Lupina-Wegener and Rolf van Dick

11 The link between cultural due diligence and sociocultural post-merger integration management as a critical success factor in M&As

Natalie Witzmann and Christoph Dörrenbächer

12 Acquisition in the banking sector in the transition process to the market economy

Ruth Alas, Tiit Elenurm, Tiiu Allikmäe, and Riina Varts

13 Does acquisition experience matter? From yes or no to why, when, and how

Florian Bauer, Andreas Strobl, and Kurt Matzler

14 Strategic alliances in the organizational and financial literatures: a review

Ian P. L. Kwan

Index

Shlomo Y. Tarba is Associate Professor in Business Strategy and Head of the Department of Strategy and International Business at Birmingham Business School, University of Birmingham, UK.

Sir Cary L. Cooper is the 50th Anniversary Professor of Organizational Psychology and Health at Manchester Business School, University of Manchester, UK, and President of the CIPD.

Riikka M. Sarala is Associate Professor of Management at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, USA.

Mohammad F. Ahammad is Reader in Strategy and International Business at Sheffield Business School, Sheffield Hallam University, UK.