Search results

Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are arguably one of the CEOs greatest challenges, and there is a critical need to get these decisions right. It is clear that no single theory is adequate to describe or inform how M&A are evaluated in uncertain conditions, but there are several that offer partial explanations or at least contribute toward our understanding of how managers can deal with the uncertain environment and assess the likely risks associated with M&A. The literature suggests how relevant theories might be aggregated to make sense of strategic investment decision and investment appraisal techniques in an organizational context and considers the implications for further research in this important area of M&A. This chapter focuses on strategic investment appraisal, and draws together a variety of theoretical perspectives, especially from the field of psychology, which may be unfamiliar to both scholars in and practitioners.

It is well recognized that Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) are important and popular ways of achieving corporate growth. Motivations include a search for monopolistic power and growth, desire to respond to a low level of profitability in the existing business portfolio, improvement of market position, filling out product line, protection of supply or distribution, gain of control, acquire what is available, to internationalize, or to reduce risk. However, M&A strategies are not risk-free, and arguably one of the CEOs greatest challenges. The last several decades have witnessed a surge of interest in top executives. The strategic choice ranks as one of the dominant roles and responsibilities of senior management. Executives’ experiences, values, and personalities greatly influence their interpretations of the situations they face and, in turn, affect their choices (Hambrick, 2007).

Over the past few years, sad stories of M&A failures have been reported and that can be attributed to poor synergy, bad timing, cultural issues, hubris, complexity, and ineffective strategic control mechanisms including poor due diligence process. M&A strategies require a series of choices made over time by actors at various organizational levels; therefore, it cannot be seen as an independent activity but as an integral part of the formal rational procedure as well as the cognitive process. Strategic cognition plays a very important role in the diagnosis of strategic issues and the formulation of problems (Schwenk, 1988). Pre-decision control mechanisms permeate all levels of strategic investments process to ensure that the investment decision aligns with organizational strategy (Alkaraan & Northcott, 2007). Due diligence processes are comprehensive appraisal of strategic investment opportunities undertaken by a prospective buyer, especially to establish its assets and liabilities and evaluate its commercial potential. Due diligence processes refer to verification, investigation, or audit of a potential deal or investment opportunity to confirm all facts, financial information, and to verify anything else that was brought up during an M&A deal or investment process.

This chapter explores the influence of due diligence processes on strategic investment decision-making (SIDM) processes. Further, it provides strategic insights and practical thinking that have influenced some of the world’s leading organizations. Furthermore, the chapter adopts a strategic perspective on M&A, particular attention has been paid to the influence of due diligence and other related strategic control mechanisms on SIDM processes.

The librarian and researcher have to be able to uncover specific articles in their areas of interest. This Bibliography is designed to help. Volume IV, like Volume III, contains features to help the reader to retrieve relevant literature from MCB University Press' considerable output. Each entry within has been indexed according to author(s) and the Fifth Edition of the SCIMP/SCAMP Thesaurus. The latter thus provides a full subject index to facilitate rapid retrieval. Each article or book is assigned its own unique number and this is used in both the subject and author index. This Volume indexes 29 journals indicating the depth, coverage and expansion of MCB's portfolio.

This article is the first half of a series concerning advanced manufacturing technology (AMT) investment decisions. Individual problems with formalised techniques in this field are reduced by the frequency of their joint use in organisations. The article emphasises that it is important to appreciate that the nature, costs and benefits of AMT are complex and the systems have a far‐reaching impact on the organisation.

Capital budgeting plays an essential role in a firm's long‐term viability and survival. The capital budgeting process includes: identification of potential projects, prediction of possible outcomes, project selection, financing and implementation of the chosen project, and monitoring project performance (Mukherjee and Henderson, 1987). Although economic considerations should govern the capital budgeting decision, individual opinions and preferences often become primary factors affecting project selection.

There is much anecdotal evidence that birds and their droppings are a major problem for the heritage profession. The purpose of this paper is to examine how serious heritage practitioners consider the bird impact to be.

An online survey was conducted of 59 Australian heritage professionals of between one and >20 year’s experience in the field.

Bird impacts were not considered of major concern to buildings. The longer experience a practitioner had, the less likely the impacts were considered an issue. Feral pigeons were deemed the most problematic, followed by cockatoos, starlings, swallows, seagulls, mynas, sparrows, cormorants, ibis, ducks and birds of prey. The professionals ranked common deterrent methods. The highest-ranking deterrents were bird netting and bird spikes, but they were only considered moderately effective. The costs of installation and maintenance, as well the ease of installation, were all deemed significantly less important than the physical impact, the aesthetic sympathy and the effectiveness of a deterrent method.

This study indicates that the impact of birds on buildings in Australia may be of less concern than previously thought, and may be driven by other factors (i.e. aesthetics, commercial companies) rather than actual effects.

This is first study of its kind that surveyed the experiences of a wide range of heritage practitioners.

The traditional approach to capital expenditure analysis is based on the neoclassical economic paradigm. According to this paradigm, managers are assumed to strive for profit maximization in an effort to maximize the wealth of the firm's stockholders. In their pursuit of this objective, the “rational economic” manager is assumed to be able to gather and process all relevant information, subject to the standard notion of cost/benefit analysis. Divergence of preferences between managers and owners, and concerns related to asymmetric information, are usually ignored. The firm itself is treated as a production function geared to meeting the profit maximization objective, with the transactions of the external marketplace (through the price system) being the ultimate organizer of the firm's activities.

Until recently little attention has been given in Accounting and Finance literature to the problem of linking the results of financial evaluation techniques such as Net Present Value (NPV) and Shareholder Value Analysis (SVA) to managers’ cognitive evaluation of strategic factors and the risk profile of projects. Various authors have called for research in this area, but very little has so far been published. This paper reports on a field‐based study carried out in the logistics industry. It builds on earlier research, which elicited constructs that managers use to assess project risk using a repertory grid technique. It provides an insight into how a project risk analysis process can be linked with project returns in strategic investment appraisal (SIA) in a divisionalised organisation. An action research approach was taken to develop a decision matrix to link the risk assessment results to expected project returns as an aid to management in strategic investment decision‐making. It is now embedded in the investment appraisal procedures across the European group of companies that participated in the research. It is suggested that the framework adopted in this experimental study is transferable to other organisational contexts.