Acquirer’s Absorptive Capacity and Firm Performance: The Perspectives of Strategic Behavior and Knowledge Assets

Sustainability Framework for Assessment of Mergers and Acquisitions in Energy Sector

According to Thomson Reuters DataStream database, 22,458 merger and acquisition (M&A) transactions with a deal value exceeding 7016 billion Euros have occurred in the energy worldwide sector during 1995–2020. International M&A enable promotion of sustainable competitive advantages, accelerates industry developments and helps to promote sustainable social and economic development. Our research aims to systemize empirical studies, which would enable assessment of the relationship between M&A transactions and the principles of sustainable development in the energy sector. To do so, SALSA (search, appraisal, synthesis and analysis) methodology with additional snowballing technique (chain-referral sampling) is conducted. The current research contributes to existing knowledge by providing an extensive systematic literature review of the academic publications on sustainable development and M&A deals. This paper may be insightful for practitioners and scholars because it highlights the most relevant lines of research on the topic and provides a synthesis of the interdisciplinary literature. Practical contributions of this paper come from its synthesis of interconnections between sustainable development and M&A deals in the energy sector, because sustainability matters may be reflected during different M&A processes: target selection, deal due diligence, deal valuation and post-acquisition integration.

THE IMPORTANCE OF ABSORPTIVE CAPACITY IN TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER AND ORGANISATIONAL PERFORMANCE: A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW

Over the years, the literature on management has advanced in the understanding of the relationship between technology transfer, absorptive capacity and organisational performance. Nevertheless, to date, the number of studies investigating these relationships in a joint manner, showing how the result varies in different contexts, is still rare. This systematic literature review analyses the existing academic literature on the relationship between technology transfer, absorptive capacity and organisational performance by carrying out a bibliometric and qualitative analysis of the literature. The bibliometric analysis provided an overview of the literature, identifying the most prominent and influent journals, countries, institutions, authors and research methods, as well as intersections between the constructs and the temporal evolution of the publications. The qualitative analysis was employed in order to understand, systematise and assess the previous findings on the subjects. The results showed that absorptive capacity is an important factor for effective technology transfer, when taking into account international technology transfer, university-industry collaboration and inter-organisational transfer. The literature converges in indicating that both technology transfer and absorptive capacity have a positive impact on organisational performance, although some existing exceptions need to be considered. Finally, the study provides an agenda for future research based on contextual, methodological and theoretical gaps identified.