The debate whether poison pills are a creator, or a destructor of stockholder value has been controversial for more than forty years of research by juxtaposing predominantly two theories. While the managerial entrenchment hypothesis holds that the adoption of poison pills leads to a destruction of stockholder value, the stockholder interest hypothesis implies the opposite. Unequivocal support for one perspective has emerged neither in theory nor by empirical evidence. Also, a shift towards specific-purpose poison pills has occurred in recent years. Therefore, we propose considering a new approach that takes a signaling and sensemaking perspective while including context cues. This incorporates the usage of long-term investigations rather than traditional short-term event methodologies commonly used.