All of the stories are based on accounts from executives and consultants involved in mergers and acquisitions. By creating this storyline, my goal was twofold:

• first, to incite you to read through the end (just as we, researchers, like to know the bottom line of the stories you tell us),
• secondly, to gather bits of events and situations around one or two educational subjects. Therefore, it is impossible to find out if such account is based on a true acquisition. Each story is a sum of moments experienced in various companies.

Only one story was created based on a real event: Flight NA3365 to Morkousk (commented on in another section). However, this account also includes issues which came about in the course of other acquisitions.

The book " The Management of Mergers & Acquisitions" contains these fictional stories as well as my thoughts on the challenges of managing the acquisition process. They were largely inspired by my work and that of other researchers. This work also includes a pedagogical use of the stories. If you are looking for information on a specific management issue, refer to the page "Looking for information".