Using rival effects to identify synergies and improve merger typologies

"The strategic management literature has found it difficult to differentiate between collusive and efficiency-based synergies in horizontal merger activity. We propose a schematic to classify mergers that yields more information on merger types and merger effects, and that can, moreover, distinguish between mergers characterized largely by collusion-based synergies and mergers characterized largely by efficiency-based synergies. Crucial to the proposed measurement procedure is that it encompasses the impact of merger events not only on merging firms - as is custom - but also on non-merging competitor firms (the rivals). Employing the event-study methodology with stock-market data on samples of large horizontal mergers drawn from the US and UK (an Anglo-Saxon sub-sample) and from the European continent, we demonstrate how the proposed schematic can better clarify the nature of merger activity." (author's abstract)"Die Literatur über strategisches Management hatte bisher Schwierigkeiten, zwischen wettbewerbsschädlichen und Effizienz steigenden Synergien bei horizontalen Zusammenschlüssen zu differenzieren. Wir schlagen einen konzeptionellen Rahmen vor, um Fusionen zu klassifizieren, welcher mehr Informationen sowohl über die Fusionstypologie als auch über die Wirkung von Zusammenschlüssen entschlüsselt und welcher eine klare Abgrenzung zwischen wettbewerbsschädlichen und wettbewerbsfreundlichen Fusionen erlaubt. Fundamental für diesen konzeptionellen Rahmen ist, dass er nicht nur die Wirkung der Fusion auf die fusionierenden Unternehmen (was typisch in der Literatur ist) umfasst, sondern auch ihre Wirkung auf die Rentabilität der Wettbewerber. Wir wenden eine Ereignisstudienmethode mit Aktiendaten an, um unsere Kategorisierung empirisch umzusetzen. Im Vergleich einer Stichprobe von Fusionen in der angelsächsischen Welt (US und Großbritannien) mit Fusionen zwischen kontinentaleuropäischen Firmen zeigen wir, wie unsere Methodologie hilfreich sein kann, die Art der Fusionsaktivitäten zu identifizieren." (Autorenreferat

Appointing Women to Boards: Is There a Cultural Bias?

Companies that are serious about corporate governance and business ethics are turning their attention to gender diversity at the most senior levels of business (Institute of Business Ethics, Business Ethics Briefing 21:1, 2011). Board gender diversity has been the subject of several studies carried out by international organizations such as Catalyst (Increasing gender diversity on boards: Current index of formal approaches, 2012), the World Economic Forum (Hausmann et al., The global gender gap report, 2010), and the European Board Diversity Analysis (Is it getting easier to find women on European boards? 2010). They all lead to reports confirming the overall relatively low proportion of women on boards and the slow pace at which more women are being appointed. Furthermore, the proportion of women on corporate boards varies much across countries. Based on institutional theory, this study hypothesizes and tests whether this variation can be attributed to differences in cultural settings across countries. Our analysis of the representation of women on boards for 32 countries during 2010 reveals that two cultural characteristics are indeed associated with the observed differences. We use the cultural dimensions proposed by Hofstede (Culture’s consequences: International differences in work-related values, 1980) to measure this construct. Results show that countries which have the greatest tolerance for inequalities in the distribution of power and those that tend to value the role of men generally exhibit lower representations of women on boards

Assessing Espoused Goals in Private Family Firms Using Content Analysis

Understanding how private family firms gauge performance is of great interest to family business scholars. Unfortunately, finding comparable data to understand differences in the performance of such firms is challenging. This study draws from the organizational identity literature to show how private family firms communicate different goals in publicly available organizational narratives. The authors illustrate a process using content analysis that allows family business scholars to create a comparative data set that captures both normative and utilitarian goals using website and press release narratives from a sample of Australian firms.Yeshttps://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/manuscript-submission-guideline

Redirecting research efforts on the diversification-performance linkage: The search for synergy

We review the literature on the diversification-performance (D-P) relationship to a) propose that the time is ripe for a renewed attack on understanding the relationship between diversification and firm performance, and b) outline a new approach to attacking the question. Our paper makes four main contributions. First, through a review of the literature we establish the inherent complexities in the D-P relationship and the methodological challenges confronted by the literature in reaching its current conclusion of a non-linear relationship between diversification and performance. Second, we argue that to better guide managers the literature needs to develop along a complementary path – whereas past research has often focused on answering the big question of does diversification affect firm performance, this second path would focus more on identifying the precise micro-mechanisms through which diversification adds or subtracts value. Third, we outline a new approach to the investigation of this topic, based on (a) identifying the precise underlying mechanisms through which diversification affects performance; (b) identifying performance outcomes that are “proximate” to the mechanism that the researcher is studying, and (c) identifying an appropriate research design that can enable a causal claim. Finally, we outline a set of directions for future research

Understanding Interorganizational Learning Based on Social Spaces and Learning Episodes

Different organizational settings have been gaining ground in the world economy, resulting in a proliferation of different forms of strategic alliances that translate into a growth in the number of organizations that have started to deal with interorganizational relationships with different actors. These circumstances reinforce Crossan, Lane, White and Djurfeldt (1995) and Crossan, Mauer and White (2011) in exploring what authors refer to as the fourth, interorganizational, level of learning. These authors, amongst others, suggest that the process of interorganizational learning (IOL) warrants investigation, as its scope of analysis needs widening and deepening. Therefore, this theoretical essay is an attempt to understand IOL as a dynamic process found in interorganizational cooperative relationships that can take place in different structured and unstructured social spaces and that can generate learning episodes. According to this view, IOL is understood as part of an organizational learning continuum and is analyzed within the framework of practical rationality in an approach that is less cognitive and more social-behavioral

A Project Portfolio Management Approach to Tacklingthe Exploration/Exploitation Trade-off

Organizational ambidexterity (OA) is an essen-tial capability for surviving in dynamic business environ-ments that advocates the simultaneous engagement inexploration and exploitation. Over the last decades,knowledge on OA has substantially matured, coveringinsights into antecedents, outcomes, and moderators of OA.However, there is little prescriptive knowledge that offersguidance on how to put OA into practice and to tackle thetrade-off between exploration and exploitation. To addressthis gap, the authors adopt the design science researchparadigm and propose an economic decision model asartifact. The decision model assists organizations inselecting and scheduling exploration and exploitation pro-jects to become ambidextrous in an economically reason-able manner. As for justificatory knowledge, the decisionmodel draws from prescriptive knowledge on projectportfolio management and value-based management, andfrom descriptive knowledge related to OA to structure thefield of action. To evaluate the decision model, its designspecification is discussed against theory-backed designobjectives and with industry experts. The paper alsoinstantiates the decision model as a software prototype andapplies the prototype to a case based on real-world data

Five areas to advance branding theory and practice

The paper suggests five areas to advance branding theory and practice based on the authors’ recent work in brand management. In this commentary, we aim to put forward suggestions and ideas for further research in brand management; ideas, which we believe will have an impact on the way branding is researched and practiced by both academics and practitioners alike. We will focus on the future of branding in the following areas, inspired by our own work in the field: (1) branding in higher education, (2) branding in Asia Pacific, (3) brand ambidexterity, (4) brand innovation on social media, and (5) brand likeability

Reprint of "The impact of mergers and acquisitions on shareholders' wealth in the logistics service industry"

Logistic service providers are facing significant challenges in recent years due to intensified competition and ever-increasing customer expectations for cohesive high-standard services at low cost. To cope with these developments many companies aim for external growth to realize operational efficiencies and exploit productive opportunities of new markets and diversified services. Accordingly, 2015 has even become the most active year for mergers and acquisitions in logistic service industry. However, studies examining the post-merger performance effect and its determinants are scarce. Consequently, this paper takes up this issue by analysing a sample of 826 transaction announcements taken place between 1996 and 2015 and their performance effect in terms of short- and long-term abnormal shareholder returns. The results reveal, that although overall transactions exhibit significant positive abnormal returns, post-merger performance for the acquiring companies differs considerably according to the logistic services offered. In the short-term trucking, railway, 3PL and air cargo companies experience significant positive abnormal returns of about 0.6%-2.6%, while sea freight carriers realize only marginal effects and CEP companies do even not show any significant reaction. In the long-term, railway and 3PL companies realize a significant abnormal return of about 20%-24%, while trucking, sea freight and air cargo carriers do not exhibit significant returns and CEP companies do even experience significant losses of about -17%. Overall, diversifying transactions of established full-service providers outperform focus-increasing transactions of specialized operators

Explicitly searching for useful inventions: dynamic relatedness and the costs of connecting versus synthesizing

Inventions combine technological features. When features are barely related, burdensomely broad knowledge is required to identify the situations that they share. When features are overly related, burdensomely broad knowledge is required to identify the situations that distinguish them. Thus, according to my first hypothesis, when features are moderately related, the costs of connecting and costs of synthesizing are cumulatively minimized, and the most useful inventions emerge. I also hypothesize that continued experimentation with a specific set of features is likely to lead to the discovery of decreasingly useful inventions; the earlier-identified connections reflect the more common consumer situations. Covering data from all industries, the empirical analysis provides broad support for the first hypothesis. Regressions to test the second hypothesis are inconclusive when examining industry types individually. Yet, this study represents an exploratory investigation, and future research should test refined hypotheses with more sophisticated data, such as that found in literature-based discovery research