Haleblian & Finkelstein (1999)

Question 1

The influence of organizational acquisition experience on acquisition performance

Answer 1

When experience across all acquirers was examined, the effect of acquisition experience was U-shaped

Question 2

U-shaped curve

Answer 2

The best performers appeared to be either those without experience who, therefore, did not make an inappropriate generalization error or those who had a significant amount of experience and appropriately discriminated.

Question 3

When to generalize

Answer 3

they should only feel confident in generalizing past organizational acquisition experience when their acquisitions are similar. Conversely, when an organization’s acquisitions are dissimilar, top managers should discriminate between events and not rely on experience.

Question 4

They perform well when

Answer 4

The more similar a firm’s acquisition targets are to its prior targets, the better they perform. These findings suggest that relatively inexperienced acquirers, after making their first acquisition, inappropriately generalize acquisition experience to subsequent dissimilar acquisitions, while more experienced acquirers appropriately discriminate between their acquisitions