Social integration in subsidiary-building acquisitions

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Colman, Helene Loe; Rouzies, Audrey; Lunnan, Randi
• 署名单位: BI Norwegian Business School; Universite de Toulouse
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS STUDIES
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0047-2506
• DOI: 10.1057/s41267-023-00633-y
• 发表日期: 2023
• 页码: 1712-1722
• 关键词: international acquisitions; subsidiary-building acquisitions; qualitative studies; Multinational corporations; post-acquisition integration

摘要

We identify and conceptualize the phenomenon of subsidiary-building acquisitions. International acquisitions provide a powerful means for multinational corporations (MNCs) to grow their existing subsidiaries. The integration of subsidiary-building acquisitions involves a triad of actors: the MNC, the existing subsidiary, and the target. However, extant research emphasizes international acquisitions as a cross-border phenomenon, focusing in a limited way on the foreign acquirer-local target dyad, thus ignoring the complexities of subsidiary-building acquisitions. Through a qualitative study of a Norwegian target acquired by a French MNC with an existing Norwegian subsidiary, we find that subsidiary-building acquisitions involve tensions between autonomy and integration in two distinct and interrelated integration processes: local integration and cross-border integration. We uncover how pressures for autonomy in one process counter-intuitively trigger pressures for integration in the other. These dynamics fuel headquarters-subsidiary relationships and subsidiary cohesion, the two components of social integration in subsidiary-building acquisitions. By unearthing the underexplored phenomenon of subsidiary-building acquisitions, we provide novel insights into the complexities of international acquisitions. We bridge the merger and acquisition (M & A) and MNC literatures, thus paving the way for research on international acquisitions to move beyond the acquirer-target dyad to understand their implications for MNCs.