The firm is dead; long live the firm: Classifying firm survival after mergers and acquisitions

Abstract

Identifying the surviving firms following mergers and acquisitions (M&A) presents challenges in organizational research. The paper offers a solution to this issue by examining prior research on M&A and firm survival to identify three empirically-relevant criteria—strategic intent, corporate name retention, and top management team composition—and integrate them into a process-driven typology of firm survival following M&A. To demonstrate the utility of this method, we apply this typology to an industry rich with M&A activity: the United States telecommunications industry.