Expanded Understanding of IS/IT Related Challenges in Mergers and Acquisitions: Methods & Research Context

Gustav Toppenberg

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    Abstract

    Organizational Mergers and Acquisitions (M&As) occur at an increasingly frequent pace in today’s business life. Paralleling this development, M&As has increasingly attracted attention from the Information Systems (IS) domain. This emerging line of research has started form an understanding of the challenges exacerbating related IT integration and the requirements on participating organizations to address these challenges. Extant literature has two limitations; the first limitation is that it has studied IS/IT issues in M&As in a limited set of industrial domains, the second limitation is that it has relied almost exclusively on two research methods: case studies and surveys. This research has the potential to improve our understanding of challenges and solutions in M&A activity, we attend to this potential through an explorative research approach.. In this paper, we adopted the focus group gathering technique (new method), specifically a ‘less-structured’ focus group process as well as the KJ method for analysis. We also used technology intensive companies as the research context (new industry domain) as they represent an unexplored industry with the potential for new knowledge according to Toppenberg & Henningsson (2013). Based on the analysis we identify gaps in the extant literature and suggest directions for future research.
    Original languageEnglish
    Title of host publicationECIS 2015 Proceedings
    EditorsJörg Becker, Jan vom Brocke, Marco De Marco
    Number of pages14
    Place of PublicationAtlanta, GA
    PublisherAssociation for Information Systems. AIS Electronic Library (AISeL)
    Publication date2015
    Article number182
    ISBN (Print)9783000502842
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2015
    EventThe 23rd European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS) 2015 - Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, Münster, Germany
    Duration: 26 May 201529 May 2015
    Conference number: 23
    http://www.ecis2015.eu/

    Conference

    ConferenceThe 23rd European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS) 2015
    Number23
    LocationWestfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster
    Country/TerritoryGermany
    CityMünster
    Period26/05/201529/05/2015
    Internet address
    SeriesProceedings of the European Conference on Information Systems
    ISSN0000-0034

    Keywords

    • Acquisition
    • Integration
    • Post-merger
    • Strategy
    • Merger
    • Focus group
    • KJ method

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