An Overview of Three Decades of Mergers and Acquisitions Research

Iberoamerican Journal of Strategic Management (IJSM), 14(2), 51-71, 2015, DOI: 10.5585/ijsm.v14i2.2222

21 Pages Posted: 27 Oct 2015

See all articles by Nuno Reis

Nuno Reis

Polytechnic Institute of Leiria

Fernando Manuel Pereira de Oliveira Carvalho

Universidade de Coimbra - Faculty of Economics

José Ferreira

Polytechnic Institute of Leiria

Date Written: March 21, 2015

Abstract

Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) have long attracted managers’ attention and have been researched in different perspectives and using different theories. In this study we grasp the wealth of extant research in the field of M&As. We conducted a bibliometric study of 635 articles on strategic management and international business research published in 34 highly ranked management journals between 1983 and 2012. We performed citation, co-citation and factor analyses to uncover the issues examined by scholars, the main theoretical approaches and themes researched. The results show a relative shift from economic and financial approaches to knowledge-based and organizational learning perspectives in recent years. There was also an evolution from assessing the performance of firms after an M&A to seeking an understanding of what may drive synergy creation after the integration process. Furthermore we observed an increasing interest in cross-border M&As. We discuss our findings, identifying gaps and suggesting paths for future research.

Keywords: mergers and acquisitions; corporate takeovers; bibliometric study; literature review

JEL Classification: M1,G34, M1, M10, O19

Suggested Citation

Reis, Nuno and Pereira de Oliveira Carvalho, Fernando Manuel and Ferreira, José, An Overview of Three Decades of Mergers and Acquisitions Research (March 21, 2015). Iberoamerican Journal of Strategic Management (IJSM), 14(2), 51-71, 2015, DOI: 10.5585/ijsm.v14i2.2222, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2677422

Nuno Reis (Contact Author)

Polytechnic Institute of Leiria ( email )

Alto do Vieiro
Leiria, 2 400
Portugal

Fernando Manuel Pereira de Oliveira Carvalho

Universidade de Coimbra - Faculty of Economics ( email )

Av. Dias da Silva, 165
Coimbra, 3004-512
Portugal

José Ferreira

Polytechnic Institute of Leiria ( email )

Alto do Vieiro
Leiria, 2 400
Portugal

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