Mergers and acquisitions (M&As) are complex and frequent business phenomena. Over the years, quite some research has been made on many different aspects of mergers and acquisitions, but the phenomenon is still far from understood. In this paper we analyze in total 57 doctoral dissertations that focus on mergers and acquisitions that have been presented and defended at Swedish Universities and Business Schools between the years 1971-2008. Our aim is to contribute to a more comprehensive picture of the state-of-the-art of the existing body of knowledge on mergers and acquisitions. In this first analysis we give a general overview of the dissertations.