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Mergers & Aquisistions

Symbiotic Acquisitions: The Drawbacks of a Rational Approach

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Despite their popularity, acquisitions have proved disappointing. The reason for this is that economic analyses have prevailed over the managerial dimension of the acquisitions. Although there is currently some agreement about the importance of post-acquisition management, divergences remain as to what the guiding principles should be. Our work, based on the case study method, tests the relevance of competing propositions when the acquiring firm adopts a symbiotic type of insertion policy. The proposition that a rational approach is unsuitable for managing symbiotic acquisitions is corroborated. This result can be explained by the nature of symbiosis policies, which are aimed at developing innovative practices and/or product lines in a cooperative framework. In the cases observed, such joint innovation has an emerging character which is inconsistent with a rational approach.

Although situations differ from one industry and one country to another, it is possible to distinguish several waves of acquisitions during the...

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The Murder In Merger: Mergers And Acquisitions As Violent Events Of Organisational Transition

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Abstract

Drawing on my work as an organisational development practitioner, my PhD research and an international research project this paper considers participant and media generated ‘texts’ of mergers and acquisitions (M&As). Using an interpretative textual analysis based on a psychoanalytic framework the paper explores re-presentations of M&As and the impact this has on our understanding of this area of organisational activity. Four M&A cases (Nestles/Pfizer’s Baby Food, AOL/Time Warner, Body Shop/L’Oreal and London Film Makers Co-op/London Electronic Arts) are used as illustrative studies. Although M&As are widely understood to be emotional and often destructive events (Sinkovics, Zagelmeyer, & Kusstatscher, 2011) the public discourse as represented by the media is often depersonalised and focussed on rational, objective strategy. The emotions and anxieties experienced by those affected are ‘frequently disposed of via denial, rationalisation, and intellectualisation and not open to discussion.’(Allcorn, 2005: 95) However, these public texts ‘have also been identified as critical sites where the (re)construction and legitimization of organizational change such as...

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