Learning or inertia? The impact of experience and knowledge codification on post-acquisition integration
研究了美国银行并购中，整合经验和知识编码如何影响整合决策的持续性或变化，发现经验导致惯性并损害绩效，而高知识编码能削弱惯性、促进学习。
This article develops and tests a theory on the evolution of complex organizational decisions, such as the decision to integrate (or not) a target company during the post-acquisition management phase. Using a sample of US bank mergers, we show that persistence in—or variation of—integration decisions depends on two key factors: integration experience and related knowledge codification. Integration experience tends to generate persistence in the integration decision, which is associated with poor deal performance. Moreover, we show that when knowledge codification is low, the persistence caused by integration experience further increases. However, when knowledge codification is sufficiently high, the inertial effect of experience diminishes significantly. Hence, high levels of knowledge codification can weaken the effects of decision inertia, which suggests that as knowledge codification increases, the role of knowledge codification switches from strengthening inertia to promoting learning.