The moderating effects of decision-making preferences on M&A integration speed and performance

Abstract

This paper illustrates the effects of post-merger integration speed on M&A performance and the moderating role of decision-making preferences. For a better understanding of the effects of integration speed, we separate the role of human and task integration speed. The results, obtained from a survey based on 99 M&A transactions with acquirers from the German speaking part of Europe, indicate that fast human integration is beneficial to M&A performance while fast task integration has a significant negative effect. Furthermore our results suggest that the effects of human and task integration speed are moderated by the decision-making style of those in charge of the transactions and of integration. Different from what we expected, our results indicate that a preference for intuitive decision-making moderates the relation between task integration speed and M&A performance significant and positive, while a preference for deliberate decision-making moderates the relation between human integration speed and M&A performance.

Keywords:

• intuition
• deliberation
• mergers and acquisitions
• integration speed
• performance

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Please note: As firm size and acquisition experience as well as individual characteristics of the respondent could be an indicator for standardized processes and less degrees of freedom with regard to decision-making, we conducted an additional analysis in which we analyzed the effects of firm size in terms of sales, job tenure and job experience on preferences for intuitive and deliberate decision-making styles. The results indicate that the variables do not affect the decision-makers’ preference for a specific decision-making style. For details please see Appendix 2.