ABSTRACT
The relationships of companies with their suppliers are important (Cowley 1988; Håkansson 1989), and they tend to be long-lasting (Håkansson 1990, 2006). Companies with long-lasting business relationships rarely terminate these relationships (Powell, Koput, and Smith-Doerr 1996), and there are indications of increased collaboration between manufacturers and suppliers (Oh and Rhee 2008). One of the main reasons for long-lasting relationships is that they become a ‘… framework for joint development of technologies…’ (Håkansson 2006: 153). Thus, companies become dependent on suppliers, and a merger or acquisition may jeopardize the relationship, as earlier research has shown that business relationships may be affected by mergers and acquisitions (Anderson, Havila, and Salmi 2001; Havila and Salmi 2002). Thus, the integration process initiated by the merger or acquisition will also impact the supplier relationships of the integrating companies (Holtström 2003; Öberg and Holtström 2006), sometimes in a disruptive way (Anderson, Havila, and Salmi 2001). This chapter focuses on supplier relationships in the horizontal integration following a merger or an acquisition. The purpose of this chapter is to explain and discuss the importance of supplier relationships in mergers and acquisitions.
