THE PHENOMENON OF MERGER AND ACQUISITION WITHIN THE AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY

MA is a way to survive and succeed in a competitive global environment as a consequence of new political, monetary and regulatory issues. The complex phenomenon that MAs represent has received consistent attention from the research community over the last 30 years. Large scaled MAs between automotive manufacturers, like the Daimler-Chrysler merger, the alliance between Renault and Nissan and the acquisition of Volvo by Ford, have attracted significant attention in the last decades. However, apart from this considerable interest, the findings on the general performance of automotive MAs are inconsistent and contradictory. This paper is focused on some critical success factors in automotive MAs like the connection between pre-acquisition and post-acquisition processes, turnover of key people etc. The phenomenon of merger and acquisition within the automotive industry needs further research and discussions due to the fact that some strategic alliances and MA proved to be successful (e.g. Skoda - Volkswagen) and others not (e.g. Rover - BMW).