Despite intuitive appeal, empirical evidence supporting the relatedness hypothesis has been scant, as it has not been established that related acquisitions generally outperform unrelated acquisitions. In considering the impact of merger relatedness on not only acquiring-firm value – as is standard in the relatedness literature – but also on non-merging rival firm value, we offer an alternative perspective that sidesteps common critiques concerning the detection of the relatedness hypothesis. Specifically, our analytical approach broadens the conception of M&A performance outcomes to allow merger relatedness to impact both acquiring and rival firms. In line with the standard approach to testing relatedness, we find higher acquiring-firm value reactions when merging firms exhibit higher degrees of relatedness; and in line with a more-novel approach to testing relatedness, we find lower rival-firm value reactions when merging firms exhibit higher degrees of relatedness. Thus, by simultaneously examining the impact of relatedness on acquiring-firm and rival-firm value in an integrated manner, the relatedness hypothesis is supported.

尽管直观上很有吸引力，但支持相关性假设的经验证据却很少，因为尚未确定相关收购通常优于不相关收购。在考虑合并相关性不仅对收购企业价值（如相关性文献中的标准）的影响，而且对非合并竞争对手公司价值的影响时，我们提供了另一种观点，回避了有关检测相关性假设的常见批评。具体来说，我们的分析方法拓宽了并购绩效结果的概念，使并购相关性能够影响收购公司和竞争对手公司。根据测试相关性的标准方法，我们发现当合并公司表现出更高程度的相关性时，收购公司的价值反应更高；并且与测试相关性的更新颖的方法一致，我们发现当合并公司表现出更高程度的相关性时，竞争对手公司的价值反应较低。因此，通过以综合的方式同时检验相关性对收购企业和竞争对手企业价值的影响，相关性假设得到了支持。