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The liberalisation of national financial and capital markets, coupled with the rapid

advancements in information technology and the increasing integration of national


economies have spurred the growth of cross-border mergers and acquisitions
(CBM&As) activities over the past two decades.
In a similar vein, CBM&As activity in the UK has witnessed
a substantial increase over the past decade. According to UNCTAD (2000), UK is one of
the largest acquiring countries in the world with a share of about 30 per cent of the total
value of global cross-border mergers and acquisitions. Despite the massive participation in the global
market for corporate control, the research on the UK CBM&As have not kept pace with the
phenomenal growth rate.
This view is endorsed by Gregory and McCorriston (2005) who pointed out that the
literature on the UK CBM&As is fairly scant.
Another important aspect of merger and acquisition activities is the size of the acquisition deals.
Over the past decade, we have witnessed an increasing volume of large deals involving
huge amounts of money such as Akzo Nobels $14.4 billion sale of its pharmaceutical
business to ScheringPlough; Vodafones $13 billion deal for mobile operator Hutchison
Essar. The theories of mergers and acquisitions (M&As) have laid some support for the proposition
that the value of the merging firms may increase after M&As.
The conclusion that target firm shareholders are the winners and acquiring firm
shareholders may or may not win in the case of domestic mergers and acquisitions
appears to be equally applicable to the performance of target and acquiring firms
engaged in cross-border mergers and acquisitions.

Reference{An analysis of short-run


performance of cross-border
mergers and acquisitions
Evidence from the UK acquiring firms And authors Agyenim Boateng,
Moshfique Uddin}

Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) is treated as a long-term


strategic orientation based on human resource advantage rather than a tactic to pursue short-term
goals. The findings confirm that bankingM&A could be very effective when the firmhad high HR
capability. Evidence was also found that HR capability had a direct impact on firm performance.
Although in-state M&A strategy was in general superior to out-of-state M&A strategy, a firm with
excellent HR capability might narrow the performance difference between in-state and out-of-state
M&A. By extending previous investigations which showed that M&A strategy and
HR capacity should be independently treated, this study highlights the critical role of internal HR
capability in performance implications of M&A strategy. Many companies are pursuing mergers and
acquisitions (M&A) as a primary growth strategy, especially for firms in newly deregulated banking
industry. Presently, the banking industry is experiencing accelerated pace of consolidation. A series of
These M&As affect shareholders, stakeholders, and customer sell-publicized M&As have transformed
the regional banks into national or even international banks. A merger or acquisition is a firms
important strategic move that can influence or be influenced by all aspects of business operations over
a long period of time. Yet, this is not the full story of corporate strategy. The firm may systematically
engage in a series of M&A if it decides to pursue growth through M&A. Therefore,
M&A should be seen as a long-term strategic orientation of the firm instead of a
one-time business tactic for short-term goals. Most previous research treats M&A as an
isolated event that can lead to some methodological limitations and high noises. The

limitations of research methods used can be one of the reasons why the literature provides little
convincing empirical evidence about the advantages of M&A strategy.
The failure of M&A can often be attributed to HR factors such as culture and
management differences, poor motivation, leaving of personnel, and uncertain
long-term goals. Organizational and HR researchers have pointed out that the benefits of acquisition
strategy are not automatically realized, and that the synergy created depends on the
post-acquisition integration
Two different views coexist in the literature regarding whether M&A is a viable
growth strategy. On the one hand, the agency theory and managerial capitalism claim
that M&A can be detrimental to shareholders, customers, and employees. In this view,
it is possible that only top managers benefit from M&A. On the other hand, industrial
economists and the resource-based view suggest that M&A can be an effective tool for
firms to tap into the advantage of scale and scope economies, and to keep
complementary assets under ownership control.
The agency theory perspective is very popular in explaining why firms engage in
ineffective M&A. The agency logic predicts that manager-controlled industrial firms
will pursue conglomerate diversification. A firms managers may benefit from the
increase in firm size in that these firms are less likely to fail and executive pay is often
linked to firm size.
The firm has an incentive to merge or acquire other firms that own complementary resources.
Hagedoorn and Dysters (2002) suggest thatM&A can be one of the alternatives that firms have to
exploit external sources of innovative competencies to protect their core businesses. Hagedoorn and
Dysters (2002) suggest thatM&A can be one of the alternatives that firms have to exploit
external sources of innovative competencies to protect their core businesses.
M&A has been a frequently adapted strategy to improve geographic coverage of
markets, to acquire promising technologies, to reduce costs, and to seek greater scale
By acquiring an existing firm in a market where the acquirer has
little presence, the acquiring firm can expand to new markets and pursue new business
opportunities.
An important factor affecting the success of acquisitions is the top managements
ability to gain employee trust and support for HR investments, while the existing
quality of employee relations seems to be the most important facilitator for
post-acquisition integration.
Since the majority of mergers and acquisitions do not meet expected results, it is
imperative to assess the usefulness of M&A concept as a strategy tool. Our findings
strongly suggest that the usefulness of M&A as a strategy tools depends on the focal
firms human resource capability. Human resource capability serves as the engine for
firms to assimilate effectively acquired firms. That is, M&A strategy can be effective
when the firm has high HR capability and can manage the post-acquisition integration
effectively.

Reference{Mergers and acquisitions as a


human resource strategy
Evidence from US banking firms and authors Bou-Wen Lin and Shih-Chang Hung, Po-Chien

Li}

Mergers and acquisitions (M&As) have attracted researchers for over 40 years. The
interest in this particular means of the strategic repertoire can be attributed to two
characteristics: first, the considerably increasing monetary volumes and the rising
frequency of dealsmakeM&As a risky and highly complex strategic every day challenge,
Second, the influence this way
of achieving external corporate growth has on economies, industries, organizations, as
well as on individuals makes it interesting from a wide variety of academic perspectives.
M&A-related issues have created various and sometimes contradicting points of view.
Manifold criteria for evaluating M&A deals have been created, and numerous factors
apparently influencing the success of anM&A project have been identified,
M&As is considered to prevent a more comprehensive approach,
especially when it comes to the issues of the post-merger integration phase following the
successful closing of a deal.
M&As are a frequently used means in the strategic repertoire of major industrial
corporations and financial institutions. On an aggregated level, the M&A market has
exhibited strongly cyclical behavior with an underlying positive trend (Gaughan, 1999).
At the peaks of the most recent of M&A waves, the value of the worldwide M&A
transactions amounted to about $3.2 trillion in 2000, and about $4.2 trillion in 2007.
M&As affect economies, industries, organizations, as well as individuals
substantially. On a macro level, M&A deals alter markets, industries or even whole econemies.
M&As often trigger dramatic change within individual firms, affecting
organizational structures, individual job environments, and personal circumstances.
The different backgrounds of researchers addressing M&A-related issues have led
to the development of a broad knowledge base with sometimes contradicting
individual findings (Haspeslagh and Jemison, 1991; Cooper, 2001). Manifold criteria for
evaluation have been presented, and numerous factors apparently influencing the
success of an M&A project identified, The terms M&As are used in this paper to
describe differences in the distribution of power between the two formerly independent
organizational entities which are to be combined: mergers shall describe a situation in
which both partners are more or less equal in power, whereas acquisitions are
characterized by one dominant and one subordinated unit.

Reference{Merger dynamics
Using system dynamics for the conceptual
integration of a fragmented knowledge base and authors Switbert Miczka ,
Andreas Groler}

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