Speed of acquisition integration: Separating the role of human and task integration

•Integration speed is important, but not well understood.•The impact of experience on human and task integration speed is separated.•We find task integration can be codified, but that human integration is more tacit.•The integration speed performance relationship is also moderated by cultural fit.•Relationships are tested using 116 acquisitions completed in Central Europe.

Speed of integration is cited to be an important success factor for acquisitions. Still, there is a lack of consensus on the relationship between integration speed and performance. We separate human and task integration speed and find opposing effects for them in 116 acquisitions completed in Central Europe between 2007 and 2009. While task integration can be codified, the human aspects of organizations are more unique and tacit. As a result, acquisition experience positively moderates faster task integration, but not human integration. We also find that cultural fit between organizations only moderates the speed of task integration. Our separation of integration into different elements and consideration of moderators could explain conflicting findings on integration speed. Implications for management research and practice are discussed.