Abstract
Marketing and branding issues are broadly ignored in the current M&A literature. Even though some recent studies empirically prove their importance, large-scale studies on this topic are practically nonexistent. Against this background the authors develop an integrative research model that connects marketing and brand issues from the premerger phase (market relatedness and brand relatedness) with central constructs of the post-merger phase (marketing integration and brand integration) and M&A performance. The theoretical framework was tested empirically across a sample of 72 M&A transactions in the German-speaking part of central Europe. The results give clear evidence that market relatedness and brand relatedness influence the degree of marketing integration, which in turn influences M&A performance. Brand relatedness has a direct impact on M&A performance, and brand integration strategy negatively influences M&A performance. No significant relationship between brand relatedness and brand integration strategy is found. © Florian Andreas Bauer, Kurt Matzler, Claudia Wille, 2012.