A Systematic Review of Research on Sustainability in Mergers and Acquisitions

Abstract

The field of mergers and acquisitions and sustainability has been expanding in the last years; consequently, there is a need for a systematic review of the existing body of knowledge. This article aims to fill this gap by providing an overview and synthesis of the research topic. The specific objectives are (1) to assess the academic impact, and (2) to determine the structure of the topic. To achieve these goals, a bibliometric analysis will be carried out through a selection of articles taken from the WoS database from 1900 to 2019. First, the historical evolution of publications will be addressed, the distribution of articles by journal and by individual author, as well as the total number of citations per article. Second, this article will develop networks of co-citations of authors and journals and co-word analysis by using VOS Viewer software. The global results will provide insights into the nature and trends of research on mergers and acquisitions and sustainability.

How Do International M&As Affect Rival Firm’s Sustainable Performance? —Empirical Evidence from an Emerging Market

“…Our study makes three contributions to the research on M&As and sustainability. First, we shift the research pendulum from focusing the M&As' effects on acquirers' performance to their rivals', which responds the call to shed light on the influence of M&As on the sustainability of acquirers' external stakeholders [3]. Our results confirm the conventional wisdom of industrial organization literature that acquirers benefit from operational and financial synergy, which in turn is harmful to rivals' performance.…”

“…The spillover effect of international M&As on the sustainable performance of their external stakeholders, i.e. other firms and the whole industry, is an important but understudied topic of research on sustainability in M&As [3]. Using a longitudinal sample of international M&As completed by public manufacturing firms in China during 2009-2015, our empirical study shows that international M&As completed by emerging market enterprises would adversely affect their rivals' sustainable performance, and the negative effects will be stronger for horizontal international M&As compared with non-horizontal M&As.…”

“…As González-Torres et al [3] point out in their latest study, one hot topic on sustainability in M&As is the effects of M&As on firms' external stakeholders' performance, which is highly related to the economic pillar of sustainability that emphasizes the value created by firms to their external context supporting future generations of prosperity [3,9]. Considering that rival firms are critical stakeholders of acquirers, and acquirers' strategies and actions will have a direct influence on them, we focus on the impacts of acquirers' international M&As on the sustainable performance of their rival firms.…”

“…International mergers and acquisitions (M&As) have been increasingly used as a springboard for strategic resources by emerging market enterprises (EMEs) to build up sustainable competitive advantages [1,2], accelerate industry catch-up, and achieve sustainable economic and social development [3] in the past decades. Scholars have investigated multiple dimensions of international M&As completed by EMEs-for example, motivations, post-integration process, and the influence on firms' financial and innovation performance [4][5][6][7].…”

“…However, almost all the previous research focuses on those M&As processes of acquirers and oversees their influence on acquirers' external stakeholders (e.g., rival firms), especially on the sustainability of those stakeholders. Further studies should shed light on this topic since not all firms are equally aggressive in realizing value from international M&As [1,2,8] and sustainability are playing the role of a prerequisite for success [3].…”