Learning through acquisitions: Management and integration of foreign R&D laboratories

By the end of the 1980s, the rapid and unbroken growth of Swedish industrial research and development (R&D) ended. The volume of industrial R&D performed in Sweden is now declining. Today, to an increasing extent, Swedish companies perform their R&D abroad. International decentralization of R&D may strengthen the competitiveness of Swedish MNCs. Furthermore, acquisitions of foreign companies may give Swedish MNCs access to new and superior technologies. A study focuses on the conditions affecting the sharing, transfer, and synergistic exploitation of technical capabilities across national and organizational borders. Its purposes are: 1. to identify common and critical problems in integrating acquired R&D laboratories, and 2. to analyze their nature and causes. Organizational integration following mergers and acquisitions is a lengthy process. In all 3 cases investigated, it was still not completed by the time of the study. No firm conclusions can therefore be made about whether the desired modes of collaboration and technical exchange will eventually be achieved.