The Impact of Acquisitions on Chinese Acquirers’ Innovation Performance: An Empirical Investigation of 1,545 Chinese Acquisitions

Acquisitions by Chinese firms have increased markedly in recent years. So far, we know little about the effects of these acquisitions on the acquirer’s innovation performance. In this regard, we study two related research questions. First, to what extent can Chinese firms increase their patent output following an acquisition? Second, which factors influence the post-acquisition patent output? Using a comprehensive data set of Chinese manufacturing firms, we find no significant overall effect of acquisitions on patent output. However, we find that several acquisition-specific factors have a positive effect on post-acquisition patent output (e.g., characteristics of the acquired knowledge base, cross-border acquisitions), while other factors (e.g., state-ownership) have a negative effect. Our study extends prior research on post-acquisition innovation performance to the context of China.

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