Links between resources, strategies, and performance in cross-border mergers and acquisitions

Cross-border mergers and acquisitions have become the major means of integrating the world's economies. This dissertation examines the relation between firm-specific resources, strategies, and performance in the cross-border mergers and acquisitions. It takes the acquiring firm perspective and has three major points. First, firm-specific resources and capabilities are the basic sources for superior post-merger performance. Second, acquiring firms face two critical M&A strategic choices when selecting potential targets: related vs. unrelated product diversification, and regional vs. global geographic span. The decision on these two choices should be based on the acquiring firm's resources and capabilities. A certain type of superior resource could enhance the benefit side or decrease the cost side of a certain strategic choice. Third, when the acquiring firm's cross-border M&A strategy fits with its bundle of firm specific resources, the combined post-merger performance would be superior.; There are three major findings. First, the cross-border acquisitions, unlike the domestic ones, tend to generate positive value for the acquiring firms. Second, there are systematic relations between acquiring firm resources and acquisition strategies. The findings indicate that an acquiring firm with superior R&D capabilities tends to favor iv global target selection and related product diversification strategy. If the acquiring firm is endowed with superior low-cost manufacturing capabilities, it favors the related product diversification strategy. If the brand name and reputation are the major competitive advantages for the acquirer, it generally will search its potential M&A targets on a global rather than regional scope. But when the acquirer has plenty of financial resources but not other capabilities, the regional focused target selection is its favored strategy choice.; The third major finding is that the fit between strategy and firm attributes contributes to superior performance for cross-border M&A. The results of three fit models strongly support this argument, especially for the performance effect of product diversification strategy-resource fit. The performance effect of the other strategy dimension, global target selection strategy-resource fit, is weakly supported.