مدیریت برند در ادغام ها و اکتساب ها: جسارت شرکت های چندملیتی درحال ظهور نسبت به اقتصادهای پیشرفته Brand management in mergers and acquisitions: Emerging market multinationals venturing into advanced economies

Introduction Mergers and acquisitions (M&As) are identified as a primary market entry mode for emerging market multinationals venturing into advanced economies (Cuervo-Cazurra et al., 2016; Liu and Vrontis, 2017). It is a complex and sophisticated international management and marketing topic that presents multi-faceted challenges for the managers and organizations involved in both emerging and advanced markets (Tarba et al., 2016; Weber et al., 2014). Previous research has indicated how M&As involving emerging markets provide different challenges to M&As in advanced economies, while the research on the former is limited. Recent trends involve how emerging economy firms acquire companies in advanced economies to reach their brands (cf. Liu and Woywode, 2013). Brand management has been identified as one critical area that may significantly affect the M&A performance (Balmer and Dinnie, 1999; Lambkin and Muzellec, 2010; Muzellec and Lambkin, 2006). This is based on brands being important means by which to both attract new customers and retain the present ones. Brands become manifests suited to secure future cash flows as they are linked to the customer perception and recognition of a product, service or company (cf. Mahajan et al., 1994). Brand equity, defined as a brand’s value based on customer recognition, thereby constitutes an important consideration when deciding the price of a target (Bahadir et al., 2008; Lambkin and Muzellec, 2010; Mahajan et al., 1994). This is because, in addition to any synergies existing between the acquirer and the target, the former generally decides the price based on an estimation of future cash flows from the latter. However, if not managed properly, such value may easily be destroyed (cf. Balmer and Dinnie, 1999; Štrach and Everett, 2006). Research has also pointed at the effect of brand management on stock markets (Wiles et al., 2012) to emphasize how brand management plays a significant role in M&A performance not only from a company, but also from a shareholder point of view. Recently, Fine et al. (2016) showed that, unlike other intangible asset acquisitions, shareholders view brand acquisitions, that is, acquisitions performed to reach brand names of the target, and noticed a decline in systematic risk following brand acquisitions, while highlighting the fact that the market appears to value brand acquisitions differently based on the brand’s characteristics. Most previous studies on brand management do not consider the country-level influence on the brand management and few have concerned how firms from emerging economies acquire companies in advanced economies. The research in this paper is aimed at investigating brand management in post-acquisition integration from a multi-level perspective and identifying how a brand management strategy can be constructed. The focus is on the cross-border acquisitions undertaken by emerging market companies into advanced economies.