Research seminar by the University of Waterloo’s Conrad Research Excellence Chair

Beyond Individual Leadership: The Impact of Joint CEO Involvement on M&A Success

A catered lunch will be available from 11:30 AM for in-person attendees.

Description:

We investigate how the pre-deal interaction between CEOs of acquiring and target firms during mergers and acquisitions (M&As) impacts their performance. By incorporating negotiation literature and social exchange theory, we theorize that active involvement from both CEOs can build trust, ease integration, and improve post-merger performance. We also theorize important boundary conditions. We test our model on US M&As valued above $100 million from 2010-2020. Our results show CEO engagement during private pre-deal meetings predicts better post-merger success. We address an important gap in current research that ignores the target CEO’s role and the joint effect of both CEOs.