Who owns a customer relationship following a merger or acquisition?

Abstract

This paper discusses how changes in management affect customer relationships. Management turnover is described widely in literature on M&As. Such turnover may help new owners to attain control over an acquired party, for example, but managers who leave an M&A party may also lead to customer losses. This paper shows that managers and other company representatives are important if customers are to be kept following an M&A. The findings indicate that customer relationships may well be "owned" by managers rather than by companies and also show that what managers and other representatives leaving an M&A party actually do is to make customers' dissolution decision more probable.