Successful takeovers and internal organizational variables: Experience from Croatia

Abstract

Optimal acquisition strategy represents challenge for business world and academia. Academia tries to identify all factors and perspectives influencing success of acquisition strategy. The business reality is that most of M&As do not accomplish prearranged synergies and effects; therefore, the objective of this paper was to analyze the impact of key organizational variables on the success of acquisition strategy. The aim of this paper was to determine the impact of strategy, organizational structure, and corporate culture in the change process in target company. To this end, success of target company is defined by comparison of business performance prior and after the acquisition process by using financial indicators. Empirical research was conducted on the sample of target companies in Republic of Croatia in the period from 1998 until 2006. Data was collected via questionnaire followed with business performance analysis for the period of three years after the transaction’s execution. Empirical research has confirmed a statistically significant correlation between the radical change in the target’s strategy and its performance after the takeover. Likewise, research confirmed statistically significant correlation between changes in organizational structure and target’s performance after the takeover and statistically significant correlation between larger change in corporate culture and target’s performance after the takeover. Scientific contribution of this paper was the verification of importance of changes in strategy, organizational structure, and corporate culture for successful change management in target companies.