The current understanding of when and how knowledge transfer leads to cross-border acquisition (CBA) success is still limited. The aims of the paper are to provide new insights into the factors that facilitate or impede knowledge transfer, and to examine the impact of knowledge transfer on CBA performance. The data were gathered via a cross-sectional survey using a questionnaire on a sample of UK firms that had acquired North American and European firms. The findings indicate that knowledge transfer and employee retention have positive influence on CBA performance. In addition, organizational culture differences have a negative influence on CBA performance, but also mediate the relationship between knowledge transfer and CBA performance. No direct or mediating effect of national cultural distance has been found on knowledge transfer and CBA performance. One of the important contributions of the present paper is the development of a conceptual framework incorporating the mediating effect of national cultural distance, organizational culture differences, and employee retention on knowledge transfer and acquisition performance. Moreover, we have tested the two distinct types of knowledge transfer namely knowledge transfer in the functional area and knowledge transfer in the general management area, thus making a contribution to the existing literature on knowledge transfer in CBAs.

This paper examines the determinants and consequences of online customer satisfaction by considering the entire online shopping experience, based on data collected from our survey of UK consumers in 2016. We found evidence that post online purchase experiences includ ing experiences with order fulfilment, ease of return and responsiveness of customer service are the most significant contributors to online customer satisfaction. Security assurance, customisation, ease of use, product information and ease of check-out, all have signific a nt impact but at much lower levels. The effect of website appearance on customer satisfaction is not significant. Our findings show that online customer satisfaction leads to repurchase intention, and a likelihood of making positive recommendations to others, but not willingness to pay more. We also found the effects of product information, customisation, order fulfilme nt and responsiveness of customer service on customer satisfaction are stronger for experience products than search products, while there is no significant difference in the effects of other determinants for search products and experience products. Several theoretical and manageria l implications are provided, based on our findings.

Leadership and talent retention are critical HR-related components in post-merger and acquisition (M&A) integration, but the extent to which these factors interact with each other and eventually contribute to the success of post-M&A integration is under-explored. The present study investigates the effect of leadership styles on talent retention strategies and on the effectiveness of post-M&A integration in a Chinese context. Based on in-depth examination of an M&A case study, we propose that an authoritative, coaching, task-focused, and relationship-focused approach has a positive influence on talent retention and effective post-M&A integration in a Chinese context. As far as talent retention strategies are concerned, authoritative leaders use communication, whereas leaders adopting a coaching style use an incentive structure to positively influence talent retention. Furthermore, task-focused leaders use position and performance in order to identify and retain talented employees. By contrast, relationship-focused leaders emphasize the guanxi network, communication, and an incentive structure in their strategies of talent retention.

This is a repository copy of Antecedents and implications of territorial servitization.

There has been increasing interest in understanding the factors that contribute to the development of employee resilience. Despite such interest, there is a dearth of research examining the contributory role played by HR practices in enhancing employee resilience. Looking at the context of Pakistan's telecommunications sector and deploying a qualitative methodology, this paper examines the impact of HR practices on employee resilience. The findings indicate that four key areas of HR practices-job design, information sharing and flow within an organisation, employee benefits (monetary as well as non-monetary), and employee development opportunities-enable the development of employee resilience. Consequently, the effective implementation of HR practices in these areas has been the key factor for the development of employee resilience.

The authors investigate the factors influencing the share of equity ownership sought in cross‐border mergers and acquisitions (CBM&As). Drawing on real options theory and transaction cost economics (TCE), they address and hypothesize key factors linked to commitment under exogenous uncertainty and the separation of desired and non‐desired assets’ influence on share of equity sought by acquiring firms in CBM&As. Empirical analysis based on 1872 CBM&As undertaken by British firms in both developed and emerging economies shows that British MNEs are more likely to pursue a partial acquisition in a target foreign firm when those foreign firms are from culturally distant countries. Further, findings support the view that the high cost of separating desired assets from non‐desired assets motivates firms to make a partial acquisition rather than acquire the target completely. This is one of the first studies to use real options theory to address the cost of commitment under exogenous uncertainty, as well as TCE logic to address the separation of desired and non‐desired assets in the target firm while analysing equity ownership sought in CBM&As. Empirically, this paper contributes by examining CBM&As by British firms in both developed and emerging markets.

The aim of the article is to examine the factors influencing the overall acquisition performance of the companies acquiring the high-tech firms. The data were gathered during 2007-2009 via a cross-sectional survey using a questionnaire on a sample of Israeli high-tech firms that were engaged in acquisitions. Given its global leading role in the high-tech sector, Israel constitutes an important site for the study of mergers in this industrial domain. The findings indicate that synergy potential (similarities and complementarities) between high-tech merging firms, effectiveness of post-acquisition integration, and organizational cultural differences positively influence the overall acquisition performance merging high-tech firms. Moreover, our findings suggest that organizational cultural differences moderate the relationship between effectiveness of post-acquisition integration and overall acquisition performance as such that positive effect of effectiveness of post-acquisition integration is higher when organizational differences are higher. Our findings indicate that organizational cultural differences also positively moderate the relationship between autonomy granted and the overall acquisition performance. An important contribution of the present article is the development of a conceptual framework incorporating the direct and moderating effect of organizational cultural differences and autonomy granted on the overall performance of acquisition.

This is a repository copy of Strategic agility and human resource management.