INTRODUCTION

Merger and acquisition activity generates a substantial amount of discussion within business circles among academics, analysts, and the media. Even though research and experience demonstrates that many mergers and acquisitions fall short of the intended goal of creating shareholder value, mergers and acquisitions still persist in the marketplace. The purpose of this discussion is to suggest that a potential explanation for this dilemma can be found by applying the resource-based rationale of acquisition within an evolutionary framework of business dynamics.

Business dynamics relates to the study of how business and firms change in the face of constraints. The lens of business dynamics emphasizes the role of acquisition as a vehicle of change. An evolutionary perspective highlights the impact of change over time and across levels of analysis, which suggests that we consider the cumulative impact of acquisition at multiple levels of analysis. Resource-based thinking provides a focal point for our discussion of change, firm level resources and capabilities, which illustrates the adaptive and selective impact of acquisition activity. The assumption of an evolutionary approach to acquisition from the perspective of firm level resources and capabilities establishes the foundation for a discussion of the adaptive and selective implications of acquisition across multiple levels of analysis. The presence of adaptive and selective implications occurring across multiple levels of analysis suggests that acquisition represents a mechanism of market evolution, which provides a potential explanation for the persistence of acquisition in light of a frequent inability to increase shareholder value at the firm level.

CONCLUSION

An evolutionary perspective highlights the role of adaptive and selective forces that operate across multiple levels of analysis in the evolution of the market. A discussion of the adaptive and selective implications of acquisitions demonstrates the capacity of acquisition to function as a mechanism of market evolution. Establishing acquisition as a mechanism of market evolution is valuable because this perspective highlights the multilevel and temporal aspects involved in evaluating the impact of acquisition activity.