Abstract
Mergers and acquisitions are effective and common ways for companies to reach a market expansion in an international business environment. They offer different advantages, such as economy of scale as the amount of production is increased, synergy will also drastically reduce costs through the suppression of duplication of some parts of the production chain, but also increase its productivity. Realizing a vertical merger, a company can save money and have a global vision over its production chain by acquiring a supplier. Conversely, a horizontal merger would consist of integrating a competitor. Beyond increasing its market share, it allows the company to extend its production capacity, reduce competition, but also to improve the production of the new company as well as the purchasing company, as combining both ways of working makes keeping the best of both companies possible, and thus improve workers' efficiency if well managed. This is why human resource management is a midpoint for every merger and acquisition. For all of these reasons, mergers and acquisitions are very popular in international business, starting from the 1980s, to reach 50,000 transactions in the 2000s (Thomson Financial IMAA, 2011).
