Merger and acquisition typologies:a review

Typologies are in abundance in the Mergers and Acquisitions (‘M&A’) literature and many are common currency amongst practitioners and academics alike. To date however they appear to have achieved a degree of uncritical acceptance. This may have negative consequences for deal doers and those seeking to build strong academic foundations for M&A research. Consequently there is need for critical appraisal of M&A typologies in order to re-root this research stream. This chapter provides an extensive review, comparison and critique of many prominent typologies in the M&A literature in order to identify the status of these frameworks and to highlight where further refinement and testing is necessary. This is the first critical review of typologies in the M&A field and aims to assess their role in making sense of this complex area