Over the past 30 plus years, the development of technological innovation through cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&As) has captured an increasing amount of attention in business research and practice. The emerging literature on the topic addresses a significant phenomenon, however, it lacks theoretical underpinning and a cumulative empirical inquiry, from a micro-foundational perspective. Hence, a systematic and integrative research effort seems justified. Accordingly, we systematically review and analyze 30 articles published in 16 top-tier peer-reviewed journals from 1985 to 2018. We provide the first comprehensive systematic review of extant literature, include a critical analysis of these research efforts, identify several methodological, contextual and theoretical issues and problems that need to be addressed and offer avenues for future research. The paper concludes with an integrative framework that provides the basis for both theory and practice to further build on and be guided by.

Introduction

In today’s hypercompetitive and contemporary business environment, businesses across the globe increasingly seek value for their operations via concepts and channels that embrace what really matters to their customers (Campanella et al., 2016; Christofi et al., 2018; Ferraris et al., 2018). Corporate investment in both domestic and cross-border mergers and acquisitions (hereafter referred to as M&As) lies in the hard of this philosophy and in the last decade has reached unprecedented levels on a global scale (Bresciani et al., 2018; Christofi et al., 2017; Haleblian et al., 2009; Shin et al., 2017). In particular, cross-border M&As have become increasingly significant, capturing, in terms of deal value, approximately 40% of all M&A activities (Humphery-Jenner et al., 2017). Such global strategic partnerships have increasingly become one of the most significant international strategies for organizations to enhance their performance (Ferraris et al., 2017; Hagedoorn and Duysters, 2002; Zhu et al., 2019). However, there is considerable evidence that many acquirers fail to gain value from cross-border M&As (Huang et al., 2016; Zhu et al., 2019). Adding to this, various studies argued that strategic and financial variables are non-significant in explaining post-M&A performance and that researchers should focus on other factors (Christofi et al., 2017; Rozen-Bakher, 2018; Weber et al., 2011). To this end, scholars from various disciplines have since endeavored to investigate and provide explanations of post-acquisition performance of crossborder M&As. Thus, linking this research exposure along with its practical significance, cross-border M&A activity has increasingly become a focus of research in various academic disciplines (Graebner et al., 2017; Haleblian et al., 2009). However, even though this research interest has created a significant amount of M&A-related knowledge, the various of findings from these distinct disciplines lacks theoretical integration and it’s characterized by fragmentation, which limits researchers’ abilities to synthesize notable contributions from each discipline (Graebner et al., 2017; Haleblian et al., 2009).