Chief Executive Officer Proactive Personality and Acquisitions: A Fuzzy Set Qualitative Comparative Analysis of China's Listed Firms

Abstract

The role of the CEO in an enterprise's management decisions renders their individual characteristics influential in decisions about mergers and acquisitions (M&As). Personal characteristics are based on many aspects, therefore, we provide a multi-angle insight into the personal characteristics of managers. Drawing on the upper echelons theory, we examine whether CEOs' proactive personality affects merger and acquisition decisions. The fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) is performed using a sample of 64 listed firms in China for the period 2010–2019. There are three solutions for cross-industry mergers, and five for intra-industry mergers. The results suggest that: (a) proactive and overconfident CEOs are inclined toward cross-industry mergers; (b) non-proactive and low-educated CEOs are inclined toward intra-industry mergers; (c) emerging industry enterprises tend to choose intra-industry mergers; (d) overconfident CEOs are more likely to undertake cross-industry mergers in traditional industries.

How proactive personality and ICT-enabled technostress creators configure as drivers of job crafting

“…Individuals using their proactive trait as a resource to confront demanding situations were shown to mitigate the negative effects of ICT-enabled technostress like communication overload (Sumiyana & Sriwidharmanely, 2020). Although the application of fsQCA in micro-focused proactive personality literature is limited, studies have found that configurations containing the presence of this trait in CEO's and entrepreneurs influence strategic outcomes (e.g., Denoo & Soh, 2018;Yang, Bai, & Yang, 2021).…”