Mergers and acquisitions are a phenomenon which can occur for a variety of reasons. It may for example be that the organizations want to gain larger market shares or to complement and learn from each other and thus become more competitive. After the completion of an acquisition or merger, a process is initiated to create an affiliation between the two companies' employees. The purpose of this paper is to examine whether there is something that management can do to make the integration process as efficient as possible. The empirical research in this paper consisted of interviews and surveys with respondents from two accounting firms that recently completed a merger. To maximize the chances of a successful acquisition, management should try to influence employees through active communication, where similarities between organizational culture are addressed and stressed and thus try to contribute to the sense of belonging between the companies. A delay in moving to a single, mutual location has affected the integration process negatively.

The technology industry is characterized by a greater than usual reliance on intangible assets. During the tech bubble many firms were valued entirely on intangible assets and growth prospects. In the aftermath of the bubble, intangible assets still play an important role as the innovative performance of a firm’s human capital and the value of its patents creates much of the value of high-tech firms. The problem of transferring human capital and knowledge may be further exacerbated when the firms belong to separate national cultures. Investor perception of acquisition announcements may be more favourable if the target workforce is much smaller relative to the bidder, and thus easier to integrate. Also, perceptions may be favourable when the target has a high ratio of intangible assets to total assets, as this may be a proxy for the relative value of the extractible intangible assets. This study uses a sample of 61 acquisition announcements between 1991 and 2004, where both acquirer and target are high-tech firms and accounting and trading data is available from three years prior to three years after the acquisition announcement. There is weak evidence to support the employee ratio hypothesis for bidder returns, and no evidence to support the intangible assets to total assets hypothesis for either bidder or target returns. Additionally, it is found that average bidder abnormal returns during the announcement period (as measured from one day prior to the announcement acquisitions to one day afterwards) are negative but not significantly different from zero, and that average target abnormal returns are positive and significant. Average wealth gains to bidders are negative and to targets are positive over the window from five days prior to the acquisition announcement to five days afterwards. Furthermore, combined wealth gains are negative, indicating the synergistic gains from high-tech cross-border acquisitions are offset by high premiums paid by the bidders for the targets. Relatedness, a lack of tender offers, and non-US acquirer status are demonstrated to be related to negative returns to bidders, whereas tender offers, US-acquirer status, and termination provisions are shown to be related to increased returns to target shareholders. In the long-run, it is found that acquirers experience superior operating cash flow returns when compared to their industry peers, however, the acquirer experiences diminished performance when compared to the combined performance of the pre-acquisition acquirer and target firms.

Although the economic motivation and efficiency effects of mergers and acquisitions (M & As) in the insurance industry have been discussed, none of the prior studies have addressed the relationship between M & A activity and insurance price change. In addition, little is known about the effect of diversification on the differences in insurance price across lines. The main objective of the dissertation is to provide evidence on these issues. A secondary objective is to investigate the relationship between M & A activity and insurer’s efficiency and financial performance. We also examine various firm characteristics that affect insurance price differences across lines and that influence insurer’s efficiency and performance. We conduct fixed effects model regressions to test our hypotheses using unbalanced panel data over the sample period 1989-2004. The empirical tests indicate that the price of insurance for newly formed insurers decreases following the M & As and diversified insurers charge lower prices than less diversified firms. Our result is consistent with one possible explanation that acquiring insurers reduce overall underwriting risks and more efficiently manage the frictional costs of capital through geographic and/or product line diversification by engaging in the M & As and therefore gain a competitive advantage in pricing. Our analysis also reveals a number of other interesting results. We find that insurance price is positively related to marginal capital allocation and inversely related to firm insolvency put value, suggesting the importance of incorporating insolvency risk and marginal capital costs in pricing lines of insurance business. We also find that the price of insurance is inversely related to cost efficiency, consistent with the efficiency structure hypothesis. However, the market share variable is not significant, implying that market power that can arise from M & A activity may not be a big concern for insurance regulators. In the analysis of efficiency and financial performance, we provide evidence that acquirers’ overall cost and revenue efficiency and financial performances decrease following M & As. We also find that more focused insurers outperform the diversified insurers.

The technology industry is characterized by a greater than usual reliance on intangible assets. During the tech bubble many firms were valued entirely on intangible assets and growth prospects. In the aftermath of the bubble, intangible assets still play an important role as the innovative performance of a firm’s human capital and the value of its patents creates much of the value of high-tech firms. The problem of transferring human capital and knowledge may be further exacerbated when the firms belong to separate national cultures. Investor perception of acquisition announcements may be more favourable if the target workforce is much smaller relative to the bidder, and thus easier to integrate. Also, perceptions may be favourable when the target has a high ratio of intangible assets to total assets, as this may be a proxy for the relative value of the extractible intangible assets. This study uses a sample of 61 acquisition announcements between 1991 and 2004, where both acquirer and target are high-tech firms and accounting and trading data is available from three years prior to three years after the acquisition announcement. There is weak evidence to support the employee ratio hypothesis for bidder returns, and no evidence to support the intangible assets to total assets hypothesis for either bidder or target returns. Additionally, it is found that average bidder abnormal returns during the announcement period (as measured from one day prior to the announcement acquisitions to one day afterwards) are negative but not significantly different from zero, and that average target abnormal returns are positive and significant. Average wealth gains to bidders are negative and to targets are positive over the window from five days prior to the acquisition announcement to five days afterwards. Furthermore, combined wealth gains are negative, indicating the synergistic gains from high-tech cross-border acquisitions are offset by high premiums paid by the bidders for the targets. Relatedness, a lack of tender offers, and non-US acquirer status are demonstrated to be related to negative returns to bidders, whereas tender offers, US-acquirer status, and termination provisions are shown to be related to increased returns to target shareholders. In the long-run, it is found that acquirers experience superior operating cash flow returns when compared to their industry peers, however, the acquirer experiences diminished performance when compared to the combined performance of the pre-acquisition acquirer and target firms.

Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) projects have long been considered as a strategy for organizational growth and gain of market share. Top management teams of companies take M&As into consideration since it is faster and less costly compare to internal growth and development programs. M&A project has variety of benefits such as growth in market share, increase in shareholder wealth, access to new markets, technological advantages and so on and so forth. Another benefit of such projects is the expected synergies which happen in financial, production, value chain and technological aspects of the existing company. However, according to many authors there is a high rate of failure in M&A industry. One of the main reasons of failure identified as the poor performance of post-M&A integration projects. Based on literature, a project perspective to these highly complex projects will reduce the risk of failure and will result in successful performance of new companies. However, there is a research gap in this filed.   After identifying the research gap and formulating the problem statement, research was designed in order to study the applicability of a project management (PM) approach toward M&A and their integration projects. Through performing a case study on a Swedish company who has undergone a number of M&A projects, interviews were conducted with top management team involved in such projects in order to collect empirical data. Based on qualitative data analysis methods, the primary data was integrated into pattern and themes and then analyzed.   Based on the findings of the research, it was identified that in acquisition projects of small and medium size companies the strategic fit is more significant than organizational fit since the new company will dissolve completely and the rest of the integration is in control of the company. Furthermore, after identifying M&A projects as temporary organizations, three aspects: project organization, human resource and governance were verified based on literature. In the context of this study, human resource and governance is considered key elements in terms of acquisition projects. Finally, a framework was proposed in order to implement project management approach by fulfilling three dimension of PM which are project organization, project life-cycle and project governance.

According to World Bank statistics, internet user occupied a quarter of the world population in 2008. In 2010, the number of internet users will be over two billion people. This group will become potential online shopping customers. Online shopping in global market keeps growing. Online shopping has become a trend. The business model of E-continues is facing highly challenge in this market. Enterprises need to look for sustainable way to keep their business continuously growth. This research is based on the external analysis of online retail industry in the U.S.A and the internal analysis of the core resources of the Amazon.com to evaluate the key factors of online M&A targets, to adjust the strategy in highly competitive industry, to utilize the resources acquired by Amazon.com to build up competitive advantage and to implement the effectiveness of strategy. The study mainly research 13 companies acquired by Amazon.com from 2008 to April 2011 on the relationship between core resources and competitive advantage. The study concludes that M&A motivation of Amazon.com is to extend product line, to enter new markets, to obtain the necessary resources and capabilities, to expand the operation scale of the industry. According to the findings and conclusions, the suggestions of the study as followed. 1. In Chinese digital content industry: firms should be focus on content development to build up the competitive advantage of digital content platform. Meanwhile the digital content can be used in each e-reader. In addition, the firms can cooperate with telecommunications firms to provide added-value service. 2. The study found that many internet companies differentiate customer service and build trust from customer by online services to create competitive advantage like creating user community to share knowledge and resources; using word of mouth marketing to attract new customers. Executives should focus on their customer-orientated service to meet market demand.

Whether it is Forbes, The Globe & Mail, The Wall Street Journal or Harvard Business Review, one can¡¦t help but notice that most accounts of business mergers are about what went wrong! In fact, over 70% of all mergers and acquisitions fail to achieve original financial expectations. That is a traumatic statistic. Additionally, although the merging entities give a great deal of importance to financial matters and the outcomes, HR issues are the most ignored ones. To be ironical, many studies have shown that most of the mergers fail to bring out the desired outcomes due to ¡§people-related¡¨ issue. The uncertainty brought out by poorly managed HR issues in mergers and acquisitions have been the major reason for these failures. The human resource issues in the mergers and acquisitions (M&A) can be classified in two phases the pre-merger phase and the post merger phase. Some literature provides ample evidence of difference in between the human resource activities in the two stages: the pre-acquisition and post acquisition period. However, we will focus on post acquisition period. The post acquisition period involves an assessment of the cultural and organizational differences, which will include the organizational cultures, role of leaders in the organization, and the management styles. The usual impacts, such as high turnover rate, decrease in the morale, motivation, and even lead to M&A failures. The other issues in the M&A activity are the changes in the HR policies, downsizing, layoffs, stress on the workers, and information system issues. As a result, human resource system issues in M&A activity are occupying a crucial position, indeed, human resource planning, compensation designs, performance appraisal system, employee development and employee relations should be given in the priority. Beside, the M&A activity also causes changes in their well defined career paths and future opportunities in the organization. Some employees also have to be relocated or assigned new jobs. Accordingly, HR will place employees in a completely different situation with new job profiles and work teams or design the job rotation programs. This may pose a tremendous impact on the performance of the employees. Therefore, HR may also need to develop a variety of training system and communication system to rebuild self-esteem of each employee. Those programs will enhance employees to obtain ability and create their potentials. Finally, the compensation structure among the organizations may also have a unavoidable difference, for example, one of firms may have performance based pay while other may have higher component of fixed pay; Hence the differences in compensation structure and performance appraisal systems also need to be re-evaluated so as to bring equity in the human resource systems and to treat employees at the equal level. Simultaneously, the employee relations issues will gain more importance in the acquisitions of Taiwan¡¦s industries. The power equation between management and unions is bound to change with the acquisition. The acquiring management also needs to keep track of number of unions in the workplace and equations between HR department and unions. Hence, developing a harmony relationship should be put in the first place. To sum up, this will require study of management-union equation, employee contracts, political linkages of the unions, compensation related clauses, number of union and dynamics between the unions. To sun up, once company accomplish those conditions, it will elevate the successful rate of M&A.

In recent years, the global mergers and acquisitions (M&As) boom surging, especially after the financial tsunami. The enterprise mentality ¡§the big get bigger¡¨, for the rapid expansion and market share. Breaking the previous mode of operation alone, corporate mergers and acquisitions have become an important strategy for the rapid growing and maintain competitive advantage. There are many factors that impact mergers and acquisitions integration. The real test is just beginning after mergers and acquisitions transaction is completed. Mergers and acquisitions integration management can help companies to play the synergies of mergers and acquisitions. It¡¦s an important key to determine the success of mergers and acquisitions. Information systems (IS) integration is among the most challenging tasks in corporate mergers and acquisitions (Alaranta and Henningsson, 2008). Corporate mergers and acquisitions generate the integration and remodeling of the corporate culture, business and organizational overlap. The relative makes the complexity of information systems integration becomes higher, and more difficult in the integration. At the same time, considering how to achieve the synergies, through integration of information systems and overcoming the uncertain changes. This study adopts the case study approach to a large panel manufacturer. Summarized the primary and secondary data and actually involved in the observed induction, related aspects of the system functionality, business process, organizational and external supply chain, to find the factors of information systems integration. And then explore the process of information systems integration in corporate mergers and acquisitions in order to establish the mode of information system integration. Finally also provide reference for large-scale merger and acquisitions.

Cross-border Merger and Acquisitions (M&As) are an increasingly important strategy adopted by firms in order to create value in fiercely competitive global markets. Cross-border M&A value creation, that is, wealth creation for shareholders from cross-border M&As, is therefore of considerable theoretical and practical importance. However, our understanding of the sources of cross-border M&A value creation remains limited. Researchers have found that the most commonly researched variables have little effect on cross-border M&A value creation. We therefore still do not understand the processes behind cross-border M&As. In this is dissertation I examine the main effects of host country regulatory, economic and physical infrastructure institutions on cross-border M&A value creation. I further examine the moderating effects of host country political institutions on the relationship between host country regulatory institutions and cross-border M&A value creation. Moreover, I investigate the effects of institutional distance between host and home country on cross-border M&A value creation. I argue that the effects of institutional distance (regulatory and economic distance) on cross-border M&A value creation are not symmetric, but rather the effects are contingent upon the direction of the distance. My hypotheses are tested on a sample of 6141 cross-border M&As between 1995 and 2003. Results of this analysis show that acquirers are more likely to create value by acquiring targets in countries with less advanced regulatory institutions. Further, my results indicate that host country political institutions positively moderate the relationship between host country regulatory institutions and cross-border M&A value creation. Host country economic institutions have an inverted U-shaped relationship with cross-border M&A value creation, and host country physical infrastructure institutions have a positive relationship with cross-border M&A value creation. Additionally, results show that there is an inverted U-shaped relationship between institutional distance and cross-border M&A value creation. The findings suggest that the effects of regulatory and economic institutional distance on cross-border M&A value creation are not symmetric. The effects are contingent upon the direction of the distance. That is whether the level of host country institutions is higher or lower than that of home country institutions. Implications for management and public policy are discussed.

Abstract Research on HRM of banking industry since the law of Financial Holding Company has been put into practice are few. The purpose of this study is to explore the correlation among Industrial Relations Climate, Job Satisfaction, Organizational Commitment and Turnover Intention in the banking industry. Based on 507 questionnaires from 51 bank branches in Taiwan, this study finds several important results. Findings¡G ¡]1¡^Positive relationships are found between Industrial Relations Climate and Job Satisfaction, Organizational Identification; and negative relationships are found between Industrial Relations Climate and Instrumental Commitment, Turnover Intention. ¡]2¡^Job Satisfaction is found positively related to Organizational Identification; and negative relationships are found between Job Satisfaction and Instrumental Commitment, Turnover Intention; but the result is only partial. ¡]3¡^Employees in Financial Holding Company are higher Industrial Relations Climate, Salary Satisfaction, Promotion Satisfaction, Organizational Identification and lower Turnover Intention than Employees not in Financial Holding Company. ¡]4¡^Employees in merging company are lowerer Industrial Relations Climate, Job Satisfaction, Organizational Identification and higher Turnover Intention than Employees in non-merger company. ¡]5¡^Employees in merged company are lower organizational identification and higher turnover intention than employees in non-merger company.