Diseconomies of Managing in Acquisitions: Evidence from Civil Lawsuits
研究发现，企业并购后，被收购方在民事诉讼中的判决数量显著增加，这反映了管理协调困难导致的监督失效，为管理不经济的存在提供了证据。
The difficulties of managing and coordinating operations as firms expand are expected to increase disproportionately with firm size. If firms face such diseconomies of managing, then acquisitions should make the combined entity more difficult to manage than the two entities operating independently. To document the existence of diseconomies of managing in acquisitions, we examine the change in civil lawsuit judgments involving acquired firms pre- and postacquisition. Civil lawsuit judgments can capture breakdowns in management oversight that cause firms to take actions that a prudent firm would not take or fail to take actions that a prudent firm would take. We find that acquired entities face a significant increase in lawsuit judgments postacquisition. We describe why our findings provide evidence of diseconomies of managing and highlight why managerial diseconomies should be an important consideration when managing or examining acquisition strategies.