ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses how strategic renewal can occur through mergers and acquisitions and how ambidexterity contributes to firms successfully reconfiguring resources and capabilities during post-acquisition integration. The inherent complexity of acquisitions has prompted scholars to develop typologies of acquisitions, primarily for research purposes, but also to draw more effective managerial implications and help practitioners in both the decision-making and integration processes. A plethora of studies have extensively investigated post-acquisition integration processes. The capability gaps—between a firm and its competitors and between what the firm needs and what it presently has toward competing effectively—influence the choice between internal and external sourcing modes. Firms face their most serious capability gaps when their existing capabilities are dissimilar from needed capabilities and when a firm has only limited strengths in the targeted capability area relative to competitors. Integration leaders are key figures in the acquisitions process and experience.
