Cross-border mergers and acquisitions: a response to environmental transformation

This article is based on case studies of eight Canadian firms which required new strategies and resources when their business environment was transformed by globalization and technological advances. Foreign managers who had already created internationally competitive strategies placed a higher value than existing owners on assets which they could restructure in a “strategic fit.” Canadian managers had to compare the costs, payoffs and risks of achieving requisite adjustments on their own, with the terms and conditions of cross-border mergers and acquisitions that could offer appropriate international strategies and the resources necessary to implement them. For managers, this article suggests that a cross-border merger or acquisition may be a financially attractive response to environmental transformation.