Managerial Ability and Technology-driven Mergers and Acquisitions

Abstract

This paper investigates how managerial ability affects firms’ engagement in M&A transactions given different levels of acquirers’ R&D intensity. Using data of US firms, the empirical results show that firms with more able managers are more likely to participate in M&As, and the effect is more pronounced when the acquirers already have high R&D intensity. The consistent results on serial M&As further support our conclusion. We also show that more able managers tend to select targets with high R&D gap over acquirers when the acquirers have high R&D intensity.