ABSTRACT
This chapter scrutinises the motivation behind mergers and acquisitions (M&A) transactions by these firms and investigates their success. It derives implications for both management and politics, suggesting a strong focus on emphasising and developing intellectual capital. The chapter addresses the question of the motivation behind M&A transactions by emerging-market multinationals (EMNCs) in developed countries. It focuses on the concept of intellectual capital as the main motivation of recent EMNC internationalisation using M&A. Human capital consists of individual-related aspects such as knowledge or experience as well as competencies such as creativity, team orientation or motivation. EMNCs suffer from the country-of-origin effect, because they traditionally offer limited quality at low price levels. The basic problems of valuing intangible assets are enhanced when measuring intellectual capital as 'it is not possible to measure social phenomena with anything close to scientific accuracy'. A subsequently conducted acquirers' analysis applying event study methodology used identical criteria to determine the sample.
