This paper sheds light on the coherent nature of the diversification process of firms through mergers and acquisitions, and analyses the reasons why firms tend to include related activities in their production portfolios. Based on Penrose's ideas, it argues that even through M&A transactions, firms tend to determine a coherent (non-random) path of growth due to the internal conditionings defined by their productive and technological characteristics. The paper gives empirical support for these arguments through a cross section analysis, based on a sample of 106 big corporations from the manufacturing industry in the USA and their M&A transactions carried out in the period 1990-1999.
mergers and acquisitions; diversification; corporate coherence
