دانلود رایگان مقاله تجربه ارزش با کسب شواهد از تغییر نظارت موثر بر محیط اطلاعات

abstract

We argue that acquisition experience translates more readily into learning to select than into learning to restructure. The acquisition selection stage is less causally ambiguous than the subsequent restructuring stagedbecause its web of activities is less complex and its outcome less delayeddand causal ambiguity undermines learning from experience. Therefore, we hypothesize that more-experienced acquirers will perform particularly well when the information environment is less transparent and thus the ability to select targets (versus to restructure them) is more important. Relying on a unique database of 1388 acquisitions realized by private equity firms in the United States between 1975 and 2005, and exploiting a regulatory change affecting the information environment faced by acquirers when selecting their targets, we find results largely consistent with our theory.

4. Conclusions

We found that, in the PE context, acquisition experience translates more into learning to select than into learning to restructure, which leads more-experienced firms to perform worse as the information environment becomes more transparent. Accordingly, our study offers several key contributions to prior literature. First, it suggests that the degree of causal ambiguity varies not only across decisions (i.e., operational vs. strategic) but also across different stages of the same strategic decision, that is, in the selection stage versus the restructuring stage. More specifically, we suggest that the likelihood of incurring problems of causal ambiguity is higher during the restructuring stage than during the selection stage. Looking beyond our empirical context of acquisitions in PE, we believe our findings may be relevant for acquisitions generally and also for alliancesdthat is, in settings where value is created both ex ante (e.g., by selecting the right alliance partner) and ex post (e.g., by coordinating effectively with that partner). Second, this paper contributes to the stream of literature on the influence of experience in the context of strategic decisions. Prior research has mainly addressed whether experience impacts decision performance (Barkema & Schijven, 2008a), but we still have limited insights into how (that is, via which mechanisms) this happens (Haleblian, Devers, McNamara, Carpenter, & Davison, 2009). By disentangling the selection stage from the restructuring stage, we offer new evidence on how experience actually creates value for firms engaging in acquisitions.