Relative standing and the performance of recently acquired European firms

This study draws on the concepts of relative standing to explain the post‐merger performance of recently acquired European firms. We used a 2 × 3 sampling design where we surveyed top managers of British and French firms that were acquired by British, French, and U.S. firms as to their perceptions of cultural compatibility with the buying firms, their sense of loss of autonomy since the merger, and post‐merger performance. While we found that the theory adequately explains the post‐merger performance of both British and French firms, suggesting that this primarily ‘made‐in‐the‐United States’ organization theory extends beyond the cultural domain of the United States, we also found an aspect of the theory that reflects a possible cultural bias. © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.