To integrate or not to Integrate? Complementarity, similarity and acquisition value creation
Abstract
In this paper, the authors explain that relatedness is often associated with acquisition value creation without distinguishing between three underlying sources of synergy: business similarity, product complementarity and geographic complementarity. The authors argue that realizing value in acquisitions requires maching the type of relatedness with the appropriate degree of integration; specifically high integration for business similarity, medium integration for product complementarity and low integration for geographic complementarity. Empirical validation, broadly supporting their hypotheses comes from 88 M&As.