This book chapter examines the role of target screening in acquisitions, highlighting its crucial impact on strategic outcomes. Despite its importance, target screening receives limited managerial and research focus. Many companies struggle to identify suitable targets, often due to reliance on heuristics that simplify but also bias the process. Managers tend to narrow the search scope to accelerate decision-making, inadvertently restricting options. Later screening stages prioritize financial over strategic considerations, increasing the risk of acquiring misaligned targets—a significant factor in acquisition failures.
Target screening: a key strategic success factor foracquisitions
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Explore how the shared understanding of “who knows what” impact acquisition success.
The founders, Mai Anh Dao and Florian Bauer, view target screening as the central strategic task of corporate development, one in which control, transparency, and traceability are crucial.
Financial figures are not, as usual, the sole search criteria but merely serve as selection criteria.