Proposing a performative approach to M&A process research.

In this paper, Bojean storytelling, Bakhtin’s concept of space–time; as well as Heidegger’s ‘Being-in-the-world’ ontology are utilised to decipher the link between pre and post-acquisition processes in the sensemaking of managers while they are doing M&A ‘in-the-making’. This is done as a response to calls by extant scholars for a more holistic approach to M & A research as well as calls for more attention to the role of time in organisation and management theory. The paper contributes by generating insights into the process of M&A becoming- the mechanisms underlying the arrival of acquisition outcomes. These insights will be generated using an ante narrative fore-caring enquiry into the M&A process. Antenarratives are fragmented, nonlinear stories which have not yet been petrified into narratives, but rather pieces of organisational discourse which can help to confirm a line of reasoning.