INTRODUCTION

Although mergers and acquisitions have been a fundamental part of business for the last three decades, they have been increasingly used in recent times as a strategic tool for growth, dealing with excess resource capacity, enhancing the base and scale of operations for competitive advantage and the like. One area of increasing concern in M&A research, however, has been in the area of understanding the integration process and how this might lead to enhanced performance and to the “2+2=5” hoped-for effect of M&As.