POST-ACQUISITION INTEGRATION AS A CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTOR TO EFFECTIVE M&A

Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are ranked among the most important ways of company growth. Company growth through M&A is considered very flexible and reliably controllable and eventually the outcomes of M&A are easily measurable. Formalized and properly structured management practices aimed at M&A have been developed almost to perfection over past several decades. On the other hand prevailing part of M&A which have been executed over past years have not generated expected results. Such a contradiction gave rise to a research question which concerns causal analysis of M&A failures. One of key reasons for M&A failures is underestimating post-acquisition integration process (PAIP). Companies usually place emphasis on pre-acquisition stage of M&A when potential synergic effects are identified and financial benefits of M&A calculated. PAIP is usually believed to come into effect almost spontaneously without heavy interference of company management. The goal of this paper is making critical evaluation of theoretical findings which refer to PAIP, demonstration of effective PAIP management in industrial practice and preparation of the set of guidelines for effective running PAIP. As research methods questionnaire survey as well as controlled interviews with industry managers were conducted.