Victor P. Romanov - Professor, Department of Information Systems in Economics and Management, Faculty of Mathematical Economics and Informatics. Plekhanov Russian University of Economics.
Address: 36, Stremyanny lane, Moscow, 117997, Russian Federation.
E-mail: victorromanov1@gmail.com

Bulat A. Akhmadeev - Post-graduate student, Department of Information Systems in Economics and Management, Faculty of Mathematical Economics and Informatics. Plekhanov Russian University of Economics.
Address: 36, Stremyanny lane, Moscow, 117997, Russian Federation.
E-mail: bulat.a@mail.ru

      This paper provides insights into a concept and essence of corporate merger & acquisition processes, as well as an analytical review of these processes in research and professional literature. Drivers and purposes of parties to these transactions, as well as their types have been identified. The most significant corporate mergers and acquisitions in the IT sector over the last decade have been considered. A synergetic effect in their operations resulting from these processes has been shown; such effect appears when an acquisition is aimed to get access to new technologies or head-hunting. Corporate merger & acquisition implications have been demonstrated from the perspective of natural ecosystem development, analogies with biological relationships – “predator-prey” mergers have been drawn. Objects in economic and biological systems are found out to behave alike. It has been demonstrated that a biological ecosystem may be innovative to a certain extent, when it is being formed by means of establishing effective financial, informational and other kinds of feedback links between economic entities. The concept of innovative ecosystem has been analyzed, and its major growth drivers have been investigated. Author’s own model of innovative ecosystem dynamic development based on the Lotka–Volterra model (the “predator-prey” model) has been suggested, where predators refer to corporations and preys – to small-scale innovative enterprises (SIE). This model has been implemented in author’s software program, and under certain system parameters it shows monotonic exponential growth of populations. Conclusions have been made that innovative ecosystem growth can be achieved thanks to proper regulation of corporate taxation parameters and SIE subsidies, as well as regulation of intraspecific competition and corporation/SIE acquisition ratio.