Can’t Touch This! : Post-Acquisition Integration and Stakeholder Relationships
Résumé
In this paper I analyze the effects that the post-acquisition integration process may have on the stakeholder-based relational resources of the target firm. First I submit that acquiring firms can benefit from the acquisition of targets that developed strong relationships with their stakeholders before the acquisition. Moreover, I hypothesize that structural integration affects negatively stakeholder-based relational resources of the target firm and may, in turn, lead to lower performance of the acquisition. I test the hypotheses on a sample of 170 acquisitions. Results provide confirmation of the hypotheses submitted. In particular data suggests that relationships with stakeholders can be valuable resources to be acquired, but the organizational effects that are generated by the integration process have a negative influence on these relational resources and endanger the economic performance of the acquisition.