Acquisitions are risky events but not all acquisitions involve the same levels of risk. We suggest that the announced acquisition motive – the ‘why’ of the acquisition – is an important risk signal. We categorize acquisition motives and distinguish between acquisitions with ‘pure explore’ and ‘pure exploit’ motives. Recognizing that most acquisitions have multiple motives, we identify acquisitions with ‘ambidextrous’ motives – that is different combinations of explorative and exploitative motives – too. Then, building on recent contributions to signaling theory, we argue that the ‘why’ will matter more, if the ‘where’ pertains to a high-risk setting. We measure this using target-to-acquirer industry relatedness. We find that the market reacts more positively to pure acquisitions, aimed at exploration or exploitation, compared to ambidextrous acquisitions. We show that the market reacts more positively to ambidextrous acquisitions orientated towards exploitation than ambidextrous acquisitions orientated toward exploration. Finally, we find that relatedness moderates this relationship, in that the market is more willing to tolerate exploration in a related industry. Our core contribution is to the literatures on acquisition motives and ambidexterity. We provide new insights into the incidence of specific motives, the ways in which they are mixed, and the market's reaction to their announcement. In addition, we contribute to the emerging literature that takes on behavioral perspective of market reactions by showing that the ‘why’ and ‘where’ of an acquisition matter.

收购是有风险的事件，但并非所有收购都涉及相同级别的风险。我们认为宣布的收购动机——收购的“原因”——是一个重要的风险信号。我们对收购动机进行分类，并区分具有“纯粹探索”和“纯粹利用”动机的收购。认识到大多数收购有多种动机，我们也将收购视为具有“灵巧”动机——即探索性和剥削性动机的不同组合。然后，基于最近对信号理论的贡献，我们认为，如果“地点”与高风险环境有关，“为什么”会更重要。我们使用目标与收购方的行业相关性来衡量这一点。我们发现市场对纯粹的收购反应更积极，这些收购旨在探索或与灵巧的收购相比。我们表明，与面向勘探的灵巧收购相比，市场对面向开发的灵巧收购的反应更为积极。最后，我们发现相关性调节了这种关系，因为市场更愿意容忍相关行业的探索。我们的核心贡献是关于获取动机和二元性的文献。我们提供有关特定动机的发生率、混合方式以及市场对其公告的反应的新见解。此外，我们通过展示收购的“原因”和“地点”对新兴文献做出贡献，这些文献采用市场反应的行为视角。