Based on researchers’ observations of the degree of relatedness or interdependence in a business combination, most past corporate strategy literature has assumed that managers try to achieve certain goals, i.e. the pursuit of economic synergies. Based on that assumption, theory predicts that...

This paper studies how firms use acquisitions to achieve long-term business reconfiguration. We base the study in a routine-based perspective on business dynamics. We develop and test hypotheses concerning the relative extent of change by acquiring and non-acquiring businesses, focusing on...

This article discusses how firms innovate within and across firm boundaries by reconfiguring their resources and business units over time. Focusing on acquisitions and internal development as key aspects of business dynamics, the authors track the evolution of 87 product lines and 88 business...

This paper explores changes in organizational structure and distinguishes between units’ origins. Unit reconfiguration is the addition of units to, deletion of units from, and recombination of units within the firm. This study compares the reconfiguration of internally developed vs. acquired...

Studying acquisitions in the US pharmaceutical industry, we first question how the alignment of acquirers’ innovation trajectories (as path-dependent or path-breaking change through the acquisition of targets with similar or distant innovations) with their own inventors’ pre-acquisition...