Abstract How to promote firm innovation through the post cross-border M&A integration process is still an unsolved theoretical puzzle. The innovation school believes that the key to cross-border M&A integration decision-making lies in the degree of integration, ignoring the inevitable institutional logic conflict in the integration process and the fact that the explanation based on the resource view does not fully reveal the mediation process from M&A integration to innovation performance. Although researches on M&A synergy in the strategic school provide an opportunity for the explanation of the above-mentioned intermediary mechanism, it also ignores the research on the relationship between integration decision-making and M&A synergy, and fails to reveal the transmission path from cross-border M&A integration decision, M&A synergy to performance.Basing on the perspective of institutional logic and the literature on cross-border M&A integration, we define the integration decision of cross-border M&A as a strategic response to institutional complexity, including two response methods of institutional adaptation and institutional co-creation. Then, we explore the influencing mechanism of two strategic responses on innovation performance basing on the M&A synergy theory. The results show that operational synergy partly mediates the relationship between institutional co-creation and innovation performance, and financial synergy partly mediates the relationship between institutional adaptation and innovation performance. In the process of operational integration, multinational companies tend to co-create new institutions to achieve operational synergy to promote innovation performance, while in the process of financial integration multinational companies tend to achieve financial synergy through institutional adaptation to promote innovation performance.This research directly contributes to the research of innovation school on the innovation mechanism of cross-border M&A. On the one hand, basing on the perspective of institutional logic, this study uses the variable of strategic response of institutional complexity to describe the integration decision of cross-border M&A, which further reveals the complex core of the cross-border M&A integration decision-making. On the other hand, from the perspective of M&A synergy, this study reveals the relationship between strategic response of institutional complexity, M&A synergy and innovation performance, opening up the internal black box that cross-border M&A integration decision influences innovation performance. This research contributes to the research on M&A synergy from the perspective of strategic management. It explores the corresponding relationship between strategic decision-making and M&A synergy from the perspective of post M&A’s strategic response of institutional complexity, and finds that multinational companies need to make differentiated integration decisions in the process of achieving operational and financial synergies. Therefore, the research has built up a theoretical bridge between integration decision-making and M&A synergy, and contribute to enriching the antecedents of M&A synergy.The research results also have practical guiding values. Firstly, managers of multinational companies should realize that the key to promoting innovation performance through M&A integration is to promote the realization of synergy effects, so they should be targeted in the integration process and strive to identify and realize synergy effects. Secondly, in the process of M&A integration, managers of multinational companies should realize that they will suffer from institutional complexity caused by institutional logic conflicts, and should understand that the starting point for M&A integration decisions is to make strategic responses to these institutional conflicts. There are two types of response methods including institutional adaptation and institutional co-creation. Thirdly, in the process of operation integration, firms should adopt institutional co-creation responding to institutional conflicts, so as to obtain operational coordination and finally to improve innovation performance. While in the process of financial integration, firms should adopt institutional adaptation responding to institutional conflicts, so as to obtain financial coordination and finally to improve innovation performances.
Wu Hang,Chen Jin. The Innovation Mechanism of Cross-border M&A Integration from the Perspective of Institutional Logic: Mediated by M&A Synergy[J]. JOURNAL OF ZHEJIANG UNIVERSITY, 2021, 51(6): 134-148.
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