تاثیر ادغام پس از ادغام در روابط مشتری تامین کننده

While the impact of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) on internal stakeholders has generated considerable empirical study, comparatively little academic attention has been paid as to how external stakeholders such as customers are affected by, and respond to, M&A activity. This study adopts case-study methodology to illuminate how the customer–supplier relationship is affected by post-merger integration processes in the business-to-business context, with the aim of increasing our understanding of why customers respond to M&A in the ways that they do. The findings highlight the importance of a set of critical customer relationship variables through which post-M&A integration actions can influence customers' perceptions of the merged organisation and, ultimately, their purchase decisions. We also identify a set of specific individual integration actions that appear to trigger changes in the critical customer relationship variables. Together, the findings contribute to our understanding of the precise mechanisms through which M&A can affect customers' purchase decisions and the combining firms' market-related performance. More broadly, consistent with the stakeholder perspective, they reinforce the need to take account of external as well as internal stakeholders when considering the drivers of M&A outcome. Implications are discussed for future research as well as for B2B service industry executives involved in M&A.

Mergers and acquisitions (M&A)1 continue to be a popular form of corporate expansion, frequently undertaken as a route to market penetration and market entry (Weber & Dholakia, 2000). For example, the value of M&A announced globally in 2012 exceeded two trillion US dollars, despite the depressed economic environment in many developed nations. However, in a paradox to their popularity, empirical studies continue to find that almost half of all M&A fail to meet their original objectives and result in value destruction for acquiring firm shareholders (Schoenberg, 2006). Stakeholder theory argues that business performance is best understood by examining the relationships between a business and all the groups who can affect or are affected by it (Freeman, 1984 and Parmar et al., 2010). While there has been much debate on the relative importance of different stakeholder groups (Mitchell, Agle, & Wood, 1997), there is general acknowledgement that customers, suppliers, communities, employees, managers and financiers are key constituencies (Parmar et al., 2010). It is notable, however, that in seeking to understand the drivers of M&A outcomes, the majority of empirical research has concentrated on the role played by internal firm factors such as strategic relatedness, organisational fit and cultural compatibility (Haleblian et al., 2009 and Stahl and Voigt, 2008). This has generated considerable insights into how M&A impacts internal stakeholders, but in comparison relatively less academic attention has been paid as to how external stakeholders, such as customers, are affected by, and respond to, M&A activity. The industrial marketing literature has long recognized the importance of a firm's relationship with its customers as a key driver of firm performance in business-to-business (B2B) markets (Evans & Laskin, 1994). The customer–supplier relationship has been shown to be one of the primary determinants of customer loyalty (Rauyruen & Miller, 2007), which in turn drives a supplier's performance in terms of share-of-wallet and ultimately market share and profitability (Rust, Zahorik, & Keiningham, 1995). Changes in the customer–supplier relationship as a result of M&A activity are therefore likely to be of key importance for firms undertaking M&A in B2B markets. Indeed, studies undertaken from a business network perspective have documented how M&A can bring about both planned and unexpected changes to a company's relationships with its business partners, including strengthening, deterioration, or even termination of the relationship with individual customers (Anderson et al., 2001 and Öberg et al., 2007). These studies have also suggested that the combining companies' internal M&A integration processes may play an important role in driving these external relationship changes (Bocconcelli, Snehota, & Tunisini, 2006). However, while this and other emerging research has established a link between post-M&A integration processes, customer retention and overall acquisition outcome, we still know relatively little of the actual mechanisms through which post-M&A integration actions exert their impact on customers and their purchasing decisions. This study therefore adopts case-study methodology to illuminate how the customer–supplier relationship is affected by M&A integration processes in the B2B context. Our aim is to increase our understanding of why customers respond to M&A in the ways that they do and the underlying determinants of whether they choose to maintain, increase or decrease their spending with the newly merged supplier firm. We believe the findings we report make two primary contributions. First, we highlight the importance of a set of customer relationship variables through which post-M&A integration processes appear to exert their impact on customer loyalty. It is these antecedents of customer loyalty that are directly impacted by M&A integration actions and which, in turn, drive changes in customers' perceptions of the merged organisation and, ultimately, their purchase decisions. Second, while prior studies in this emerging area have tended to consider post-M&A integration processes in relatively broad terms, we identify a set of specific individual integration actions that appear to trigger changes in the critical customer relationship variables. Together, these findings provide an important step towards understanding the precise mechanisms through which M&A can affect customers' purchase decisions and the merging firms' customer-related performance. More broadly, they support the need to take a stakeholder perspective in advancing our knowledge of the determinants of acquisition outcome and underline that future research should continue to look beyond internal stakeholders to the wider impacts of M&A activity on customers and other external stakeholders.

This paper has sought to illuminate the ways in which post-M&A integration actions impact the customer–supplier relationship and the mechanism by which they do so. Our study has isolated the impact of specific integration actions and highlighted the role played by a set of critical customer relationship variables, through which post-merger integration processes appear to exert their impact on customer loyalty. These findings represent another step towards understanding the precise mechanisms through which M&A can affect customers' purchase decisions and the combining firms' market performance. More broadly, in illuminating the impact of M&A on the customer–supplier relationship, our findings also support the need to take a stakeholder perspective in advancing our knowledge of the determinants of acquisition outcome. Further research, as outlined above, is now required not only to establish the wider generalisability of our findings but, more generally, to continue to build our understanding of how customers and other external stakeholders are impacted by M&A activity.