Abstract

In 2002, a conference on mergers and acquisitions (M&As) (called the M&A Summit 2002) was held in Calgary, Alberta, Canada attracting scholars from around the world. At that time, we observed that there was a divergence between conventional academic wisdom and executive practice, and we recognized that existing research on M&As provided only a limited and insufficient understanding of this important phenomenon. While the construct is multidimensional and cross-disciplinary, most of the research was single-discipline and one-dimensional producing only a partial understanding of the phenomenon. A volume produced from that conference was published in 2004 (Pablo and Javidan 2004). That volume contained six parts, those being M&A Performance, M&A Strategy, Merger Implementation and Integration, M&A Knowledge Transfer and Learning, Culture and Leadership in M&As, and Research in M&As. The intent of the conference and resulting volume was throwing down a gauntlet to future M&A researchers by pointing out the need for better paradigm development, more attention to operationalization and measurement of key constructs, and importantly more multidisciplinary research utilizing methodologies that can capture the dynamics of the phenomenon under study.