I conducted my research on the revitalizing effect of acquisitions in three stages over the course of five years. In the first stage, I worked with three different companies to examine their acquisition strategy, integration processes and the impact the acquisitions had on organizations as a whole. The second stage involved statistical analysis of a sample of 25 Dutch multinationals, including Elsevier, Wolters Kluwer, Ahold, Heineken, Vopak, DSM and Imtech (formerly International Muller). The database consisted of all of their acquisitions from 1966 to 1999. I estimated a variety of statistical models — using techniques such as logit and OLS regression analysis and survival analysis — to assess variables including the number of acquisitions the companies made, the businesses they were involved in, their geographical locations and growth and profitability of the companies. The first set of statistical models focused on when companies undertook acquisitions in terms of periods of growth or decline. The second set of results focused on performance consequences of acquisitions revealing, among other things, that companies can do too many of them or not enough.i The third set of models examined a company’s acquisition intensity over time. These models indicated, among other things, that companies that regularly engage in a limited number of acquisitions performed better than companies that alternated periods of high acquisition intensity with periods of... To read the complete article, login or sign-up using the form below.
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