This study examines how stakeholder orientation influences a firm’s likelihood of becoming an acquisition target. Firms with high stakeholder orientation foster complex, trust-based relationships with stakeholders, creating resources that are socially embedded and causally ambiguous. This complexity poses two challenges for prospective acquirers. First, the information mechanism highlights difficulties in evaluating stakeholder-oriented firms’ resource configurations due to their intangible and opaque nature, increasing perceived risks of adverse selection. Second, the combination mechanism addresses concerns about integrating relational resources, which are often deeply tied to firm-specific routines and difficult to transfer post-acquisition. Analyzing 3,684 U.S.-listed firms (1991–2012), the study finds a negative association between stakeholder orientation and acquisition likelihood, driven primarily by information asymmetry. These findings provide a nuanced understanding of stakeholder resources in acquisition dynamics.
