Merging Family-Owned Businesses: an Application of Internalization Theory

• Autor(a) principal: Perez, Juan Andrés de Oliveira
• Data de Publicação: 2021
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.26/39231
• topic: Family-Businesses; Internalization Theory; Merger; Agency Costs; kb Governance; Domínio/Área Científica::Ciências Sociais::Economia e Gestão

Family-owned businesses represent one of the pillars of modern economy. In Portugal, they represent more than 50% of all existing companies according to a study conducted by KPMG (2019). Governance of a number of family-owned businesses can be challenging. This project addresses the process of merging three enterprises owned by one family, presently with different managers at the head of each branch, focusing on value creation arising from the merger. In order to do so a financial assessment tool is employed to assess the tangible benefits of the merger. Internalization theory is used as a theoretical background for the merger of domestic businesses, which is a novel approach. A merger, although it may be demanding presents an opportunity to internalize competencies and capabilities otherwise dispersed across businesses and so provide the reshuffling of the internal organizational design, namely in what concern governance, as well as the interface with external economic agents. Our results suggest that the intended merger creates value paving the way for its completion. This project features a natural experiment and should interest the family owners, as it proves that the intended merger will deliver tangible benefits. It contributes to academic knowledge, as it is an opportunity to test in a practical setting Hennart’s (2019) internalization theory intended to international business at its inception.