Antenarratives as sociomaterial apparatus of sustainability

M&A failure rates remain high. We believe this is because the focus has been on the financial outcome of the M&A process, when asset valuation can be assessed. We theorize that practices that foster social and environmental sustainability are equally important in improving chances of success in M&As. For this we integrate two process approaches, antenarrative and agential realism. We present the case of a large multinational concrete corporation that is continuing to do M&A in several countries globally. They have enough experience in M&A to have codified protocols for best practices in M&A. However, that said, they also are enacting antenarrative processes, some quite early, and others before and after the late phase of asset valuation. We find that the concrete corporation has developed these codified protocols in what Barad calls apparatuses. This changes the whole theory and idea of what is codification and how it works. The acquired companies, are not ‘things’ but rather are on trajectories of reconfiguring past ways of doing things into new protocols.