The paper highlights the fact that brand and product divestiture does not receive much attention from top management and only passively taken when a firm’s current business is under difficulty. This inactive practice is considered to take away firms’ shareholder value. | Abstract. The paper highlights the fact that brand and product divestiture does not receive much attention from top management and only passively taken when a firm’s current business is under difficulty. This inactive practice is considered to take away firms’ shareholder value. Though receiving more attention by firms recently, brand and product divestiture is not a simple decision. The paper then reviews the existing literature in related areas – a number of product portfolio management models, brand portfolio management models, and current research works relating directly to brand and product divestiture in M&A context. As the result of the review and analysis, the paper finds out the gap for the matter of brand and product divestiture – . the comprehensive set of causes, strategies, decisional criteria, consequent processes, and detailed guidelines. Based upon the gap the paper raises several future research directions as its recommendations. Keywords: Brand, Product, Divestiture, Portfolio, Management, Process, Strategy, Guidelines, Criteria. BRAND AND PRODUCT DIVESTITURE: A LITERATURE REVIEW AND FUTURE RESEARCH RECOMMENDATIONS Vũ ANH DŨNG University of Economics and Business – Vietnam National University, Hanoi 144 Xuan Thuy, Cau Giay, Hanoi, Vietnam Email: vudung@ Management & Marketing Challenges for the Knowledge Society (2012) Vol. 7, No. 1, pp. 107-130 Management & Marketing 1. The importance of brand and product divestiture Globalisation is a source of demands for firms to enter new markets or to exploit various opportunities of the existing markets. Its pressure drives firms to spend enormous efforts and resources in launching new product and service offerings from time to time. Firms tirelessly widen product and brand portfolio to meet individual needs of customers. This management approach results in the fact that firms’ product and brand strategies become more complicated gradually – mostly aiming at recruiting more customers. In
