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In this study a population of 60 family owned businesses acquired in 1971 are analysed over a period of 15 years. The firms are followed historically for four years before and ten years after the merger.

The aim is to identify dominating processes and behaviour in different variables during the period 1967-81. This will be done through the following:

- on an aggregated level, identify and analyse characteristic processes and patterns by the acquired businesses before and after the acquisition

- on an aggregated level compare the pre- and post-merger performances

- on an individual business level illustrate, validate and theoretically interpret results and conclusions.

Primarily this study has not a theoretical but an empirical point of departure. A working paradigm is that the "confrontation" between the firms

1 "external environment and internal resources" results in dynamics having an impact on the firms. The processes are classified in taxonomies/typologies, in an attempt to answer what has happened. Interpreting the forces behind the development is the attempt to answer why it has happened.

The empirical data was collected through three different surveys resulting in quantitative and qualitative observations combined in different perspectives in a multimethological approach. The first is economic data (sales, financial ratios etc) gathered from the firms' external account statements. However, several firms were found to have gone bankrupt, closed down etc. This initiated a second, follow-up study, which had a longitudinal "geography of enterprise" approach and was implemented through a telephone inquiry. The third collection is a case-study of five firms from the population carried out by discussions with representatives of the merging companies.

The merged businesses turned out to be extremes compared to branch characteristics respectively. Refinements of the patterns made it possible to construct a three-dimensional typology showing four principal processes.

Ten years after the merger there followed five principal spatial and institutional changes. Closures, removals from community and amalgamation with group companies, reduction to production units only, the joining of premises with group companies in the same community and relatively "indépendant" affiliations. One third of the population have been closed down or removed. One half do not exist as "indépendant units". Only one third have escaped larger infringement. Thirty businesses have once more been acquired. Some more than once.

When comparing the pre- and post-merger performances, a convergence phenomenon was identified. Oscillating and deviating pre-merger trends later converged towards standard variable values and equilibrium, searching for an optimum group course.

The different changes and restructuring activities conducted after the acquisitions, can be summarized in three principal post-merger processes:

- liquidation and adjustment of output capacity to market demand.

- reorientation through new product and market combinations.

- growth and development through "multiplying by splitting" and emancipation of expansion potential.