Research On The Impact Of Creative Asset-seeking Cross-border M&A On The Technology Catch-up Performance Of Latecomer Firms

In recent years,cross-border mergers and acquisitions by latecomer firms in emerging economies with the main motivation of seeking and acquiring creative assets have developed rapidly.With Chinese companies as the representative,the number of cross-border M&A and the scale of transactions of Chinese companies have increased significantly after the financial crisis in 2008.Among them,crossborder M&A activities aimed at acquiring creative assets such as technology and brands are also increasing year by year.Latecomer firms that are at a double disadvantage in technology and market expect to acquire advanced technology,R&D teams,and other technological creative assets from developed country companies through cross-border M&A to improve their technological innovation capabilities,thereby achieving technological catch-up and leapfrog development.However,the existing literature lacks research results on the technology catchup process based on cross-border M&A.For cross-border M&A seeking creative assets,there are also problems such as improper selection of target companies,wrong research on creative assets,or technical integration,which ultimately leads to corporate M&A failure.Therefore,it is necessary to conduct in-depth research on the behavior of latecomers on transnational mergers and acquisitions as a way to acquire creative assets to achieve technological catch-up.Aiming at the actual situation and the gap in theoretical research,this article selects the case of Geely’s acquisition of Volvo Cars as a research object,and attempts to explain how a latecoming company can achieve technological catch-up performance through creative asset-seeking cross-border M&A from the perspective of dynamic capabilities.This article hopes to provide some practical guidance for Chinese companies to achieve technological catch-up through cross-border M&A.This article mainly includes the following sections:The first chapter is the introduction.Introducing the study background of this paper,clarifies the research question,research purpose and significance,and determines the research method and writing framework based on the research question.Finally,the possible innovation points and deficiencies of this paper are put forward.The second chapter is the literature review and theoretical basis.It mainly reviews and combs the existing related literature on creative asset-seeking crossborder M&A theory,late-stage enterprise technology catch-up theory,and dynamic capability theory,summarizes the characteristics and deficiencies of existing research,and provides theoretical basis for case analysis.The third chapter is the research design and case description.This chapter mainly introduces the case selection basis and data collection source,explains the data analysis method,and finally briefly describes the situation of the selected case.This article uses a single case study method to select a representative case of Geely’s acquisition of Volvo Cars as the research object,and obtains relevant information and data through various data channels to organize and summarize it to form a database to lay the foundation for subsequent case analysis.The fourth chapter is the case analysis and main findings.This chapter conducts a single case analysis of Geely’s acquisition of Volvo Cars,and analyzes the crossborder M&A process and the realization of technological catch-up performance from the perspective of dynamic capabilities by collecting data on the process of the M&A event.Finally,the paper concludes the role of creative asset-seeking crossborder M&A in the technological catch-up performance of latecomers:(1)Before M&A,the latecomers use the M&A selection capabilities to determine mergers and acquisitions strategies,select appropriate target companies,and the timing of M&A prerequisites for achieving technological catch-up performance;(2)In M&A,latedeveloping companies use the recognition capabilities of M&A to identify the creative assets of target companies and actively negotiate to build the foundation for achieving technological catch-up performance;(3)After M&A,late-developing enterprises use the M&A integration capabilities to integrate and restructure technical resources and create new resources is a necessary guarantee to achieve technological catch-up performance.The fifth chapter is the conclusion and recommendations.The main research conclusions of this article are:(1)Cross-border M&A for the purpose of acquiring creative assets have become an important way for emerging companies in emerging economies to quickly pursue technological catch-up through open innovation;(2)The dynamic capabilities in the context of creative asset-seeking transnational M&A take the creative assets of the target as the point of action,and act on the entire process of the late-stage enterprises to achieve the technological catch-up performance.Based on this,this article puts forward the following practical suggestions: First,Chinese companies should dare to take a radical approach to cross-border M&A to acquire creative assets to quickly achieve technological catchup and leapfrog development;Second,enterprises should pay attention to the full use of dynamic capabilities in the process of mergers and acquisitions.