Acquisitions, Agreements and Innovation in the Italian Food Industry

SummaryIn the last decade the food industry has experienced an intense process of acquisitions and agreements, both at the national and international level. In turn these operations are likely to have led to deep changes in the competitive environment. By using a novel database on external operations, evidence for Italy is presented in this paper on the determinants of the choice among alternative organizational solutions. In particular the focus of the paper is on the identification of the economic forces that makes a firm in the industry take over other firms rather than carry out an agreement or a joint venture with them. Our empirical results suggest that not only do the characteristics of the firm matter, but also the degree of similarity with the other firms involved in the operation and the strategies carried out by the firm have a role in explaining the observed patterns.