RESEARCH ARTICLE Merger and acquisition motives and outcome assessment Ibne Hassan 1 | Pervez N. Ghauri 2 | Ulrike Mayrhofer 3 1 UHY Hassan Naeem & Co., Lahore, Pakistan 2 Birmingham Business School, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK 3 IAE Lyon, Magellan Research Center, Jean Moulin Lyon University, Lyon, France Correspondence Ulrike Mayrhofer, IAE Lyon, Magellan Research Center, Jean Moulin Lyon University, 6 cours Albert Thomas, 69008 Lyon, France. Email: ulrike.mayrhofer@univ-lyon3.fr Research on merger and acquisition (M&A) outcome often focuses on tangible financial results and the reaction of stock markets. This research attempts to provide a more accurate assess- ment of M&A performance by linking tangible as well as intangible M&A motives to outcome assessment. The theoretical framework is based on evaluation theory. We analyze four case studies of international M&As conducted by European companies. The findings indicate that M&A outcome can be more accurately measured by aligning it with the motives defined by the acquiring firms. They suggest that M&A outcome assessment should be considered as a pro- cess covering both premerger and postmerger stages. KEYWORDS mergers and acquisitions, motives, outcome assessment, performance criteria, process research 1 | INTRODUCTION Mergers and acquisitions (M&As) are significant for companies involved in the deals, but also for national economies and industrial structures (Buckley & Ghauri, 2002; Caiazza, Shimizu, & Yoshikawa, 2017). Strategically, they reconfigure industries, reshape corporate structures, transform organizational cultures, and affect individual careers (Marks & Mirvis, 2001). In contrast with the important vol- ume of transactions taking place across the world, available studies indicate that M&As do not necessarily enhance the value of acquiring firms. For example, Bertrand and Betschinger (2012) show that M&As increase the value of target firms, while the outcome is less clear for acquirers. Several scholars argue that factors used for per- formance measurement are inaccurate, which may explain inconsis- tencies in empirical findings (Berkovitch & Narayanan, 1993; Brouthers, van Hastenburg, & van den Ven, 1998; Deng, 2010; Lin & Chou, 2016). The terms merger and acquisition are often used as synonyms, even if there exist some differences between the two types of operation: in a merger, two companies agree to form one single company (both companies lose their independence), whereas in an acquisition, one company purchases another firm (and thus becomes its owner). M&A research has remained under criticism for insuffi- cient theory development (Faulkner, Teerikangas, & Joseph, 2012; Schweiger & Goulet, 2001). The debates in the literature concern questions related to how M&A outcome is measured (Meglio & Risberg, 2011; Very, 2011; Zollo & Meier, 2008), how M&As per- form (King, Dalton, Daily, & Covin, 2004; Trichterborn, Knyphausen- Aufseß, & Schweizer, 2016), and which factors explain M&A perfor- mance (Chalençon, 2017; Haleblian, Devers, McNamara, Carpenter, & Davison, 2009). Trautwein (1990) suggests that research on M&As should focus more on process-related aspects than on efficiency- related issues. This research attempts to contribute to a better understanding of merger outcome (or performance) and its assessment (or measure- ment). The objective is twofold: (a) to investigate how companies define merger motives and whether they are used to assess merger outcome, and (b) to determine if the alignment of merger motives with merger outcome allows assessing performance in a more accu- rate way. Our empirical study focuses on cross-border M&As involv- ing acquirers and target companies from European countries and the United States. It follows an exploratory research design (Denzin & Lincoln, 2000; Ghauri & Grønhaug, 2010) and takes the form of four case studies in the information and communications technology industry. Data were mainly collected through semistructured inter- views with key managers of acquiring firms and completed by the analysis of internal and external documents. The findings of our research indicate that M&A outcome can be more accurately measured by aligning it with the motives defined by the acquiring firm. They show that it is necessary to determine M&A motives in an appropriate way and then link them with outcome assessment factors. While several earlier studies are based on DOI: 10.1002/tie.21967 Thunderbird International Business Review. 2018;1–10. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/tie © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. 1