The Strategic Decision-Making Process in Mergers and Acquisitions: The perspective of acquired companies from the South of Brazil

Abstract

This study aims to analyze how the Strategic Decision-Making Process (SDMP) occurs in organizations from the perspectives of acquired companies in processes of Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A). The study includes checking the motives influencing the SDMPs from the perspective of the companies acquired, identifying the stages of SDMPs in those M&A, as well as analyzing the convergence of strategic decisions of M&A processes analyzed under the SDMPs’ approaches found in literature. The research was conducted through the adoption of multiple case studies on strategic decisions related to M&A processes, so that it would search for a replication of the phenomena studied. Characteristics from more than one approach among those analyzed in this study can be observed. The analysis identified how the process of mergers and acquisitions occur from the viewpoint of the acquired companies as well as what are the steps that strategic decision-making processes undergo in these situations. Furthermore, from the literature, the approaches related to strategic decision-making that most occur in such situations was found. Understanding how such approaches occur in the course of strategic decision-making processes allows understanding more clearly how the decision makers, under uncertainty, loss risk, or insecurity surrounding these situations, tend to act.

Keywords: Strategic Decision-Making Process, Mergers and Acquisitions, Acquired companies.