HOW ANTICIPATED EMPLOYEE MOBILITY AFFECTS ACQUISITION LIKELIHOOD: EVIDENCE FROM A NATURAL EXPERIMENT

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Younge, Kenneth A.; Tong, Tony W.; Fleming, Lee
• 署名单位: Purdue University System; Purdue University; University of Colorado System; University of Colorado Boulder; University of California System; University of California Berkeley
• 刊物名称: STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT JOURNAL
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0143-2095
• DOI: 10.1002/smj.2237
• 发表日期: 2015
• 页码: 686-708
• 关键词: acquisition; human capital; employee mobility; employee noncompete agreements

摘要

This study draws on strategic factor market theory and argues that acquirers' decisions regarding whether to bid for a firm reflect their expectations about employee departure from the firm post-acquisition, suggesting a negative relationship between the anticipated employee departure from a firm and the likelihood of the firm becoming an acquisition target. Using a natural experiment and a difference-in-differences approach, we find causal evidence that constraints on employee mobility raise the likelihood of a firm becoming an acquisition target. The causal effect is stronger when a firm employs more knowledge workers in its workforce and when it faces greater in-state competition; by contrast, the effect is weaker when a firm is protected by a stronger intellectual property regime that mitigates the consequences of employee mobility. Copyright (c) 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.