An organizational learning approach to digital and non-digital firm acquisition behavior

Johanna Deperi, Olivier Bertrand, Pierre-Xavier Meschi and Lionel Nesta

European Management Journal, 2022, vol. 40, issue 6, 873-882

Abstract: Drawing on organizational learning theory, this study investigates whether, and how, digital firms' characteristics can alter the determinants of exploration and exploitation activities through acquisitions. Considering that digital firms intrinsically differ from non-digital firms as regards their resource bundles, cost structure, and growth strategy, we argue that these distinctive characteristics can moderate the effects of slack resources and performance feedback on the propensity to conduct explorative and exploitative acquisitions. Comparing large, U.S. publicly traded digital and non-digital acquiring firms, we empirically show that consistent with our predictions, digital firms' characteristics mitigate the effects of slack resources and performance feedback on the propensity to conduct explorative acquisitions. Yet, contrary to our predictions, the findings also indicate that digital firms' characteristics reinforce the effects of these determinants on the propensity to conduct exploitative acquisitions.

Keywords: Acquisition behavior; Digital firm; Organizational learning; Slack resources; Performance feedback; Exploitation and exploration (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0263237322001190
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:eurman:v:40:y:2022:i:6:p:873-882

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/115/bibliographic
http://www.elsevier. ... me/115/bibliographic

DOI: 10.1016/j.emj.2022.09.005

Access Statistics for this article

European Management Journal is currently edited by Michael Haenlein

More articles in European Management Journal from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().