Mergers and acquisitions as embedded network activities

This paper introduces a network perspective to Mergers and Acquisitions (M&As). The literature on M&As commonly focuses on only the parties directly involved in mergers and acquisitions, while the present perspective points to M&As as embedded activities. The paper provides empirical illustrations from 12 acquisitions to indicate the consequences when M&A studies acknowledge business relationships as long-term, actors as active and heterogeneous and activities as interdependent. The network perspective introduces new ideas on why M&As occur, how the acquired party is chosen and why M&As fail. Specifically, it indicates how M&As result from industry, customer and supplier changes, the difficulties to achieve marketing synergies, resistance to integration to not disturb present relationships and business partner reactions that undermine intended results. It also points to the difficulties of foreseeing outcomes, as individual parties may respond differently to the M&A.