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Zugl.: München, Techn. Univ., Diss., 2010

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European Business School, Diss., 2005--Oestrich-Winkel.

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Universiẗat, Diss--Bayreuth, 2008.

European Business School, 2005--Oestrich-Winkel.

Zugl.: Diss. Oestrich-Winkel, Europ. Business School, 2007.

Cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&As) are strategic business expansions across national boundaries, which provide bundle of resources and opportunity for growth strategies, however can prove rather problematic and complex. One of the most complex stages in cross-border M&As is when two firms are in the integration process. The most challenging part in a cross-border M&A, is the integration of two different firms that feature different management styles and organizational cultures. Once the integration seeps deeper into functional levels, the strategic level M&A commitment is faced with operational implementation issues. The marketing department is usually heavily involved in this integration process. These are the people who create and generate the sales which thereby increase the income of the combined firm. However, research on marketing integration related to M&As has paid little attention to the amalgamation of similar resources from two similar departments, particularly in the cross-border M&A context. Furthermore, the existing research does not clearly demonstrate the success factors that contribute to the marketing integration process in cross-border M&As. Hence, this thesis explores the role of the antecedents that influence the marketing integration process in cross-border M&As. Results indicate a significant impact on integration from marketing synergy and the redeployment of marketing resources. Meanwhile there is a striking result pertaining to the relationship between interaction and the speed of integration which is significant but negatively to influence the marketing integration process. In addition, cost savings and relationship effectiveness among the marketers of both the acquirer and the acquired firms are found to be highly significant and to positively support the M&A performance. This means that the commitment of the marketers from both firms relies on a close relationship in order to uphold the integration synergy while at the same time reducing cost and improving M&A performance.

In recent years, practitioners and academics have become increasingly concerned that traditional discounted cash flow valuation models, such as the net present value model, are not capable of adequately capturing the value of managerial flexibilities to delay, grow, scale down, or abandon projects. The effect of ignorance of such managerial flexibilities can be potentially substantial, with the possibility of producing biased decisions. Real options analysis provides the insights that business investment projects can be conceptually compared to financial options and is therefore able to seize the value of managerial flexibilities. <br /> The purpose of this thesis is to develop a theoretical model based on option pricing theory to evaluate the managerial flexibilities arising in a variety of mergers and acquisitions, which vary in payment forms. The thesis shows how transactions can be structured as a real exchange options, given the share price of each participating firm is subject to a specified degree of uncertainty. The takeover decisions of bidder or target, i.e., the takeover threshold to bid or to accept the bid, is obtained through the analysis. In addition, the thesis provides valuable theoretical insights into the following aspects: <br /> <ul> <li>The impact of the form of payment on the decision making process for each participant and corresponding merger terms</li> <li>The payment form that minimizes the threshold to trigger a transaction</li> <li>The allocating rule of mergers and acquisitions synergy when payment form threshold is employed </li> </ul> <br /> In the latter part of thesis, an empirical study is conducted on mergers and acquisitions completed by US public bidders between January 1985 and April 2004 excluding all financial institutions deals. Strong support is found from the data that some of the target firm characteristics such as expected growth rate and volatility are significant in explaining the payment form choices.