"Acquisition Rate and Financial Performance: An Absorptive Capacity Perspective"
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2025-07-08
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en
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This thesis investigates how the financial performance of publicly listed high-technology firms is affected by their rate of acquisitions, and whether this relationship is moderated by prior acquisition experience. Guided by Absorptive Capacity Theory (ACT), the study hypothesises that firms benefit most from a moderate acquisition rate, as both very low and very high levels of acquisition activity may hinder performance. Too few acquisitions may limit opportunities for external knowledge absorption, while excessive acquisition activity can exceed firms’ capacity to process and integrate external knowledge. It is also expected that prior acquisition experience enhances a firm’s ability to manage more intensive acquisition programs. A panel dataset covering multiple years of firm-level data is used to test these relationships through multiple linear regression analysis. The results do not support the hypothesised effects: neither acquisition rate nor its quadratic term shows a significant relationship with performance, and prior experience does not moderate this relationship. These null findings challenge earlier empirical results and suggest that acquisition outcomes are highly context dependent. The study contributes to the literature by extending ACT into the temporal dimension of acquisition strategy and highlights the importance of firm-specific integration capabilities over general pacing prescriptions
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Faculteit der Managementwetenschappen