| Established firms sometimes seek to augment their internal R&D by acquiring entrepreneurial firms. Very little is known about the micro-foundations of the knowledge transfer process involved in such "technology grafting" acquisitions, or about the determinants of its success. This research brings together new theory, as well as multiple varieties of empirical analyses to fill these gaps in our understanding. Specifically, the empirical analyses examines archival data on 224 acquisitions of small technology intensive firms by 49 established firms in the information technology manufacturing sector during the time period 1988--1998, in addition to survey and qualitative data on subsets of these transactions. We find that technology-grafting acquisitions may be viewed as attempts to purchase dynamic capabilities; entrepreneurial firms are acquired for the technology underlying specific products, as well as the expertise that enables the production of second and third generation variants of the product. The emphasis is not on transferring a given technology to multiple sites, but on managing the interdependencies between the acquired technology and its new setting. The success of these acquisitions depends on being able to preserve the dynamic capability that is acquired, by maintaining the integrity of the organizational boundaries that define it. This is easier to achieve when the target's technology is autonomous (rather than systemic) with respect to the acquirer. We also find that acquirers seem to make integration choices in a rational manner, as the variation in total performance arises from differences in acquisition experience and stable firm properties, not from integration choices. More narrowly defined measures of performance do exhibit variation with integration choices in predicted manners; greater levels of integration lead to greater integration costs, greater disruption effects, and lower technological performance. Apart from direct contributions to the acquisition management literature, these findings improve our understanding of intra-firm knowledge transfer processes, as well as the strategies of established firms in dealing with externally generated innovations. |
