Mergers and acquisitions research in finance and accounting: Past, present, and future

Journal: European Financial Management

Abstract: Mergers and Acquisitions (M&As) have been an important tool for organizations to achieve several of their objectives. These inorganic investments, which are typically larger than capital expenditure (organic investments), can potentially create or destroy the value of the firms that undertake them. The subject of M&As has attracted the attention of researchers from many disciplines, including accounting, finance, law, and strategy, to name a few. 

In this paper, the researchers make an attempt to analyse the vast literature on M&As in the finance and accounting areas over the period 1970–2022. Based on their analyses of a corpus of 1,418 articles on the subject, they document the pattern of publications, prominent and impactful sources of research, prolific and impact authors, and collaboration patterns among them. More importantly, they discover the themes that have been explored in the prior literature and also provide emerging frontiers that are likely to shape the future research agenda in this field.