The joint effects of organisational learning and CEO cognition on cross-border acquisition pace

Organisational learning is a double-edged sword because it is contextual and subject to interpretation by the top managers. Top managers’ cognitions influence how they interpret and process organisational learning, and how they deploy resources. Drawing on organisational learning and upper-echelon theories, we argue for the joint, complementary effects of a firm’s cross-border acquisition (CBA) experience and the chief executive officer’s (CEO) cognitive orientation, measured by their international experience and tenure at the firm, on the pace of CBAs. The results from analyses of an unbalanced panel of 1583 observations across 369 CBAs from 205 Indian MNEs support our hypothesis. Interestingly, we find negative effects of the firm’s CBA experience and mixed effects of the CEO’s cognitions. However, the joint effect is positive and stronger, as hypothesised. We mainly contribute to the CBA literature by demonstrating the role of ‘experience cognition complementarity’ on the CBA pace.