Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of CEO narcissism in corporate acquisitions with a focus on frequency and size and furthermore to examine the subsequent stock market reaction.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors investigate 751 acquisitions made by 158 UK nonfinancial firms and 202 CEOs in the 10-year period 2007–2016. The authors use the ratio of first-person singular pronouns to total first-person pronouns in CEO speech as the main proxy for CEO narcissism but the results are robust to the use of signature size and picture as alternative measures.

Findings

The authors find that increased CEO narcissism is associated with an increase in M&A expenditures, an increase in deal size and a decrease in deal frequency. Thus, the authors find that narcissistic CEOs favor size over frequency (“go big”). Furthermore, the authors find that the stock market reacts less favorably to acquisitions announced by firms run by narcissistic CEOs.

Originality/value

The paper contributes to upper echelon research by investigating the association between CEO narcissism and corporate decisions in a UK setting. More specifically, the paper contributes to the existing literature by investigating how CEO narcissism is associated with corporate acquisitions in terms of the size and frequency of deals and how such irrational behavior is penalized by the stock market. Previous literature has focused on the more broad association between CEO narcissism and M&A expenditures.

中文翻译：

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看着我变大：CEO 自恋和公司收购

目的

本文的目的是研究 CEO 自恋在公司收购中的作用，重点是频率和规模，并进一步研究随后的股市反应。

设计/方法/方法

作者调查了 158 家英国非金融公司和 202 位 CEO 在 2007 年至 2016 年的 10 年间进行的 751 次收购。作者使用 CEO 演讲中第一人称单数代词与第一人称代词总数的比率作为 CEO 自恋的主要代理，但结果对于使用签名大小和图片作为替代措施是稳健的。

发现

作者发现 CEO 自恋的增加与并购支出的增加、交易规模的增加和交易频率的减少有关。因此，作者发现自恋的 CEO 更喜欢规模而不是频率（“变大”）。此外，作者发现股票市场对由自恋型 CEO 经营的公司宣布的收购反应不太好。

原创性/价值

该论文通过调查英国环境中 CEO 自恋与公司决策之间的关联，为高层研究做出了贡献。更具体地说，本文通过调查 CEO 自恋与公司收购在交易规模和频率方面的关系以及股票市场如何惩罚这种非理性行为，为现有文献做出了贡献。以前的文献侧重于 CEO 自恋与并购支出之间更广泛的关联。