ABB, a Swiss-Swedish electrotechnical giant, has been heralded as a new kind of international enterprise, using an innovative matrix and lean management to combine global resources with decentralized local presence. Starting from a criticism of the "process school" in international management...

A merger wave on an unprecedented scale has recently been sweeping through the Western world. Many studies have demonstrated the unimpressive economic outcome of most mergers. This article argues that an important reason for disappointing long-term performance is the underestimated difficulties...