Despite Efficiencies, Mergers and Acquisitions Reduce Firm Value by Hurting Customer Satisfaction

Most researchers focus on the effect of mergers and acquisitions (M&As) on investor returns and overlook customer reactions, despite the fact that customers are directly impacted by these corporate transformations. Others suggest that in M&A contexts, a dual emphasis of customer satisfaction and firm efficiency is both likely and beneficial. In contrast, the authors demonstrate that M&As not only do not yield a dual emphasis but also cause a decline in customer satisfaction to the extent that they eclipse any gain in firm value from an increase in firm efficiency. A quasiexperimental difference-in-differences analysis and an instrumental variable panel regression provide robust evidence for the dark side of M&As for customers. The authors use the attention-based view of the firm to demonstrate that post-M&A customer dissatisfaction occurs because of a shift in executive attention away from customers and toward financial issues. In line with the related upper echelons theory, they find that marketing representation on a firm’s board of directors helps maintain executive attention on customers, which mitigates the dysfunctional effect of M&As on customer satisfaction. This research identifies a negative M&A–customer satisfaction relationship and highlights executive attention to customer issues and marketing leadership as factors that mitigate this negative relationship.