Mergers, Acquisitions and Corporate Performance: The Balanced Scorecard Approach

The broad objective of this paper is to evaluate the impact of mergers and acquisitions on corporate performance, using the five dimensions of financial performance, learning and growth, customer satisfaction, internal business process and environment. An ex-post study approach was used to extract pre- and post- merger information of selected banks in Nigeria, however, five banks formed the sample for the study. The data set consists of 11 years from (2000 – 2010), with five years pre and five years post analysis. Consequently, data obtained was then analysed using descriptive statistics and the paired t- test of differences as the problem under examination is a pre- and post- effect. The study finds a significant impact of mergers and acquisitions on the financial performance, customer satisfaction and learning and growth. However, the observed impact was not statistically significant in the environmental and internal business process performances (p>0.05). Against the backdrop of the findings, the study recommends the establishment of an environmental management and audit system, which will take cognisance of environmental management issues and also research and development initiatives should be planned, in other to achieve the best possible utilisation of organisations internal business processes.