The growth in the number of Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) in the past few years has been remarkable. After a brief fall in the years 2000--2002, the M&A activity in U.S. and U.S. cross-border deals have been on the rise again since 2002, with deals worth a total of {dollar}823 billion in 2004, {dollar}530 billion in 2003, and {dollar}441 billion in 2002 (Mergerstat, 2005). Businessweek (2002) stated that 61% of the deals made since 1998 have failed to improve shareholder value for the acquirer. Poor integration has been noted as one of the foremost causes of M&A failure (Schmidt, 1999; Schweiger and Goulet, 2000). Surprisingly, IT integration was rarely a consideration during merger integration, until very recently. This study looks at how IS functions belonging to two merging parties (or heritages) are brought together. Specifically, we look at what are the IS integration decisions made during the pre-merger, merger and post-merger phases and what influences these decisions.; Given our interpretivist position, the objective of this study is to understand IT decisions from the perspective of the actors involved in the integration decisions. Using theoretical1 lenses, the researcher then re-interprets the actors' view of the phenomenon. Three sets of theories are considered: symbolic influence (Frommer, 2001; Astley, 1984) of Wall Street, acquirer-target power struggles (Mintzberg, 1983) and concern for business-IT strategic alignment (Hirschheim and Sabherwal, 2001; Reich and Benbasat, 2000). Other theories used to enhance our data interpretation include institutional theory (DiMaggio and Powell, 1983) and Circuits of Power (Clegg, 1989). Four mergers of eight Fortune 500 companies participate in this study. This research uses a case study approach, collects at least two 'snapshots' of each merger, using the hermeneutic method to analyze the data, resulting in both within and cross-case analyses.; From these analyses, both theory-based and data-emergent themes emerge.; This research also comments on the poor grasp of what we understand by business value of IT; this in turn, forces organizations to consider IT's contribution towards synergy realization largely in terms of cost-savings rather than revenue-generation. (Abstract shortened by UMI.); 1Theories are used as 'sensitizing devices' to 'read' the world in a certain way (Klein and Myers, 2001; Walsham, 1995; Giddens, 1984).
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