De-commitment to losing strategic action: Evidence from the divestiture of poorly performing acquisitions

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Hayward, Mathew L. A.; Shimizu, Katsuhiko
• 署名单位: University of Texas System; University of Texas at San Antonio; University of Colorado System; University of Colorado Boulder
• 刊物名称: STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT JOURNAL
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0143-2095
• DOI: 10.1002/smj.526
• 发表日期: 2006
• 页码: 541-557
• 关键词: de-commitment; mental accounts; acquisitions and divestitures

摘要

We use a mental accounting framework to study the conditions in which CEOs de-commit to poorly performing acquisitions and so become more likely to divest them. We test this framework by contrasting the experiences of 68 firms that divested acquisitions with a control sample of 68 firms that did not divest their acquisitions. Consistent with the theory that we use to explain and predict de-commitment, our results suggest that poorly performing acquired units tend to be divested when executives can place them within 'attributional accounts' (i.e., accounts for the cause of the performance that do not incriminate them) and 'comprehensive accounts' (i.e., within the context of overall firm performance). Copyright (c) 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.