Abstract Besides more than four decades of research on mergers and acquisitions (M&A) strategy, disparate findings remain about its role in the M&A process and its contribution to value creation. The inconclusive findings in M&A research are partially attributable to coarse-grained research, collapsing complex phenomena (e.g., M&A strategies) into single variables. Therefore, this manuscript employs a systematic literature review (SLR) methodology to investigate the role of M&A strategy for value creation and provides a nuanced view of M&A strategy and how it is influenced by interaction factors. Based on a SLR, we identified and reviewed 92 papers to understand the role of M&A strategy for value creation. The proposed integrative framework highlights that different M&A strategies can lead to the same outcomes, depending on given interaction factors. Furthermore, our findings suggest that the inconclusive findings of M&A research can be partially attributed to coarse-grained research that investigated the influence of a single variable on the value creation potential of a M&A strategy, neglecting the influence of numerous variables. This study advances the current understanding of the role of M&A strategy for value creation by developing an integrative framework that highlights that the value creation potential of a given M&A strategy hinges on interaction factors. Also, this article proposes avenues for further research and provides practical and theoretical implications.
Schneider et al. (Tue,) studied this question.