Paper info

Business Network Dynamics and M&As

Asta Salmi , Helén Anderson , Per Andersson and Virpi Havila

The paper was published at the 16th IMP-conference in Bath, U.K in 2000.

Our point of departure is business network dynamics and the phenomenon of mergers andacquisitions. We discuss both structural and temporal connectedness of business nets, wherethe merging firms are embedded in. Depending on the degree of structural connectedness (oroverlapping) which can also be discussed with the help of position concept, the merger oracquisition will bring about more or less changes to the business network. In addition, thetemporal connectedness deserves attention as it helps in understanding the change processes.We conclude the paper by noting that for managers it is essential to acknowledgeconnectedness (structural/processual) both in a pre-merger (planning) and integration(implementation) phase of M&As in order to analyse the potential performance and outcome.