Abstract: One of the important drivers of acquisitions by firms is building new businesses and acquiring valuable resources including capabilities and technologies. Some capabilities are hard to achieve within the firms and hence acquisition becomes a major tool to acquire them externally. These new and acquired capabilities are important tools in building new businesses through the acquisition of enhanced competences and resources. Acquisitions by firms help in capability building which in turn helps in building new businesses. Capability acquisition and business building forms an important part of corporate growth strategy. We take the example of Nokia in answering one of the key questions in Corporate Strategy field: How do firms bring in new capabilities through acquisitions and how do these help in business building process?

Abstract: Prior research on mergers and acquisitions has largely focused on factors internal to the organization as the principal determinants of post-acquisition performance. Drawing from research in competitive dynamics, our study explores the intensity of rivals’ responses in the post-acquisition competitive context. We found that the level of organizational slack held by the acquirer’s focal rival, the resource similarity between the two, and the focal rival’s dependence on the acquirer’s target market influences the total number and the breadth of the set of competitive actions carried out by the focal rival in response to the acquisiton. Further, we found that the focal rival’s slack and resource similarity at the time of the acquisition have a negative impact on the acquirer’s post-acquisition stock returns.

Abstract: The seeming young age and size of the M&A field of study is likely to explain the fact that to date, there has been little discussion as to the ways of studying M&A. This paper addresses this issue, and in so doing, hopes to initiate a long-term, ongoing dialogue within the M&A research community as well as together with its executive stakeholders as regards research methods, their practical relevance, and their suitability in the study of M&A. Our aim is to explore, compare and debate the study of M&A from a research methodological perspective, focusing on qualitative methods. We hope that this synthesizing, critical overview serves as a platform to discuss ways of making both more theoretically robust and practically meaningful M&A research.