Managing merger madness

Mergers and acquisitions are widely recognized as a fast‐track to organizational growth, increased profitability and greater market share. They seem to offer easy gains without the pain of lengthy sales drives or costly R&D programs. However, several recent studies have found that around half the mergers analyzed had negative impacts on share values. In the rush to merge, companies conveniently ignore high merger failure rates when the mistakes of others could be the starting point for their own success.