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Contribution Details

Type Journal Article
Scope Discipline-based scholarship
Title The role of procedural rationality in debiasing acquisition decisions of overconfident CEOs
Organization Unit
Authors
  • Stevo Pavicevic
  • Thomas Keil
Item Subtype Original Work
Refereed Yes
Status Published in final form
Language
  • English
Journal Title Strategic Management Journal
Publisher Wiley-Blackwell Publishing, Inc.
Geographical Reach international
ISSN 0143-2095
Volume 42
Number 9
Page Range 1696 - 1715
Date 2021
Abstract Text Research Summary In corporate acquisitions, overconfident chief executive officers (CEOs) often make biased decisions, subsequently paying unjustifiably high acquisition premiums. We investigate the predeal process in which the acquisition premium is decided upon and, drawing from procedural rationality theory, argue that the pursuit of greater procedural rationality through slow-paced predeal processes reduces the tendency of overconfident CEOs to inflate acquisition premiums. The empirical results based on a sample of acquisitions involving publicly held US firms show that overconfident CEOs tend to pay high acquisition premiums, replicating earlier findings of such a relationship. More importantly, the results show that the tendency of overconfident CEOs to overpay for acquisitions decreases under conditions in which the predeal processes are slower in pace. Managerial Summary CEOs often exhibit excessively high levels of confidence in their ability to make successful corporate acquisitions. Driven by the belief in their ability, overconfident CEOs often end up overpaying for acquisitions. Our study provides suggestive evidence that setting a slow acquisition process pace is an important prerequisite for an acquiring firm and its board of directors to attenuate the inflating effect of CEO overconfidence on acquisition premiums. Our arguments and results imply that boards of directors should slow the pace of predeal acquisition processes if their CEO is exhibiting signs of overconfidence.
Free access at DOI
Digital Object Identifier 10.1002/smj.3319
Other Identification Number merlin-id:21237
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