The Role of Cultural Learning and Collective Teaching Initiatives in M&a Knowledge Transfer

This paper focuses on the roles of collective learning and teaching initiatives in mergers and acquisitions. We examine how these managerial processes influence different types of knowledge flows. We also explore the antecedents of these managerial processes, including knowledge complementarity, knowledge complexity, cultural acceptance and cultural preservation. We test our hypotheses on a sample of domestic and cross-cultural acquisitions conducted by Finnish companies. INTRODUCTION According to the knowledge-based view (KBV), knowledge is a key resource for creating competitive advantage (Spender and Grant, 1996). Acquisitions contribute to the firm’s value creation in several ways (Gomes et al., 2001), particularly through knowledge transfer that provides access to new knowledge and enables unique combinations of the knowledge bases of the acquiring and target firms (Ahammad and Glaister, 2011; Almor, Tarba and Benjamini, 2009; Björkman, Stahl and Vaara, 2007; Weber, Rachman-Moore and Tarba, 2011). Because of the importance of knowledge transfer in M&As, researchers have focused on identifying influencing factors, ranging from knowledge and relationship characteristics to managerial processes. While certain factors, such as knowledge tacitness and post-acquisition communication, have received much attention in empirical research on M&A knowledge transfer (e.g. Bresman, Birkinshaw, and Nobel 1999; Ranft and Lord, 2002), other factors have been