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This research investigates acquisition activities carried out between Western companies and Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs), focusing on the influences of acquisitions on identity, culture and commitment of the target SOE employees. The managerial factors that influence the acquisition integration are investigated and their relationships with the post-acquisition performances of the target SOEs are explored. There are three research questions: How do acquisitions influence the identity, culture and commitment of the target SOE employees? What are the factors that determine an employee’s post-acquisition identification? What are the relationships between acquisition management and post-acquisition performance? Case studies are adopted as the main research methodology in order to provide an in-depth answer to these research questions. Statistical analysis is used in order to provide clear evidence of the factors influencing post-acquisition identification and the effect of acquisitions on the performance of SOEs. The findings of this research indicate that acquisitions have significant negative effects on the performance of target SOEs and these negative effects are mainly due to inappropriate managerial strategies adopted by Western acquirers. Further, although not significant, a positive correlation between acquisition management and acquisition performance has been found in this research, a finding which is in line with the prediction of theories and consequently, supports the assumption that acquisition management contributes to acquisition performance. All factors (pre-acquisition identification, cultural incompatibility, communication, a sense of continuity, fast reform and negative emotion) are significantly related to post-acquisition identification when age, education, salary, size, employee position and organisational tenure are controlled. Different from previous studies, which found that the individual-organisation relationship influences employees’ organisational identification in the Western context, this research finds that social relationship is a vital factor in influencing Chinese employees’ identification. Also, social relationship is a unique factor fostering Chinese employees’ positive identity, but not the shared social identity as has been found in the Western context. These findings imply that social relationship is a distinct factor in fostering employees’ organisational identification in China and consequently, in predominantly collectivistic countries. Further, this research shows that the point held in previous studies that out-group is not necessarily discriminated against in collectivistic cultures when group membership is salient due to the collectively-oriented feature is not applicable in acquisitions because people of collectivistic cultures show a strong in-group identity, a strong motive to distinguish insiders (i.e. in-group members) from outsiders (i.e. out-group members), and a strong resistance to uncertainty. These responses are driven by the characteristics of collectivistic culture such as collective-orientation and high uncertainty avoidance. Three particular issues emerged that may be useful for acquisition management in China. The first is the recruitment of employees at the post-acquisition stage. Selecting people as managers of post-acquisition organisations cannot be based only on their ethnic groups or multi-language capability, but also on other factors. To run post-acquisition companies, it is better to employ people who are professionals in the industry with multi-cultural working experience than those returned overseas Chinese who have been away from China for a long time and ethnic Chinese who lack managerial experience in China. The second issue is that middle-aged and older employees find it difficult to accept changes due to their deeply rooted culture. Younger employees can more easily accept the changes than middle-aged and older employees because their values are more or less in accordance with those of Westerners. The third issue is that due to the fact that the M&As do not require employees to completely abandon or change their old identity, and social relationship is a unique factor in fostering organisational identification in China, these factors contribute to a sense of continuity perceived by Chinese employees and consequently lead to a positive correlation between pre- and post-acquisition identification in the acquired SOEs, which are positioned as having dominated status in acquisitions. The implications are discussed at the end of this thesis.

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This thesis examines the wealth effects of mergers and acquisitions and the size of the corresponding control premia in three in-depth analyses. As previous evidence highlights the significance of different degrees of M&A competition across countries, the first empirical analysis of the thesis studies varying levels of takeover competition within domestic U.S. industries, focusing on its impact on acquisition premia and announcement returns to shareholders of the acquiring firm. Several measures of industry-level M&A activity and value are used to determine the degree of (latent) takeover competition within 49 different Fama/French industries. The documented results show that acquirers in high- competition (low-competition) M&A industries submit significantly higher (lower) offer premia and lose significantly more (less) value for their shareholders around the deal announcement. These robust findings suggest that acquiring firms facing high degrees of industry-level takeover competition are likely to suffer from the 'winner's curse'. The second analysis of the thesis exammes contradictory predictions regarding the association between the acquisition premium and the size of the target firm. It documents a robust negative relation between control premia and target size, indicating that acquirers tend to pay less for large firms and not more, as conventionally assumed. Yet, acquisitions of large targets still destroy more value for acquirers and result in sharper increases in their idiosyncratic return volatility around the deal announcement, implying that investors perceive these deals as more uncertain projects. Acquirers of large firms continue to underperform small target acquirers in the long-run in terms of stock market and operating performance. Thus, despite the payment of significantly lower premia, large deals fail to deliver the assumed benefits, a finding that is attributed to their complexity. The final empirical analysis focuses on the information content of withdrawn M&A deals and examines the association between the rationale behind deal withdrawals and the quality of managerial investment decisions in corporate control transactions. Results show that CEOs, who demonstrate managerial restraint and abandon overvalued M&A bids (Value-CEOs), are able to create significant (short- and long-term) value in their firm's return to the market for corporate control. As such, the withdrawal motive of Value-CEOs provides credible II Abstract (long-lasting) information about the degree of managerial focus on shareholder value creation and plays an essential role for investors in building expectations towards future managerial investment decisions. Yet, investors do not differentiate pre-withdrawal deals by Value-CEOs from any other M&As. Thus, deal cancellations offer investors access to novel CEO-specific information, allowing the market to learn about managerial idiosyncrasies. This analysis demonstrates that deal withdrawals are important information-generating corporate events and that investor knowledge about managerial qualities and motives in M&A deals can affect returns to acquiring shareholders in future transactions. III

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The vast majority of the world's M&A activities are represented by takeovers ofprivately held targets. Yet, this sector of the market for corporate control has received very little attention from academic researchers. This thesis thus sets out to provide a comparative analysis, both theoretically and empirically, of gains to bidders of private targets in relation to gains to bidders of public targets. When targets are privately held as opposed to publicly held or listed, there are reasons to believe that bidders gamer material gains even with full competition. By recognising the possibility that the decision of the owners of a private target to agree to a takeover (i) represents the exit strategy or (ii) is reflective of the passage of the firm through its life cycle, this thesis provides a new perspective on the wealth consequences of private-firm takeovers on bidder shareholders. The empirical analyses in this thesis reveal that not only bidder gains, but also bidder characteristics, distinctly differ between private-firm takeovers and takeovers of public targets or divested subsidiaries. This thesis also provides evidence on the largely unexplored determinants of the choice of payment methods in private-firm takeovers. In several important aspects, the findings contribute to the extant evidence on determinants of payment methods in takeovers of public targets. Considering the costs known to be associated with the decision to go public facing the owners of a privately held company, acquisition by a listed bidder is potentially a costeffective means by which the firm owners can exit or the firm can gain access to funds necessary for financing the unexploited investment opportunities. The common knowledge of the cost savings arising from choosing the takeover route implies that a portion of these savings is also available to be garnered by bidders of private targets. On the other hand, these savings are either trivial or absent when targets already have access to the capital market (i.e., public targets and divested subsidiaries). Given that the bidder is willing to pay the acquisition price that fully reflects its valuation of its target, there is hence no guarantee that the bidder earns positive gains when acquiring a public target whereas the exit costs savings provide a source of ex ante gains to the bidder if it opts for a private target. Around the bid announcement, bidders of private targets are found to earn positive gains. In contrast, when taking into account the event windows leading up to the announcement date, evidence emerges that public-firm bidders experience losses and bidders of divested subsidiaries overall fare no better than breaking-even around the bid announcement. Also at variance with the experience of public-firm takeovers, this thesis documents that announcement-period gains to bidders of private targets are positive irrespective of the payment method and that equity financing in private-firm takeovers leads to larger bidder gains. This positive announcement-period effect of equity financing appears attributable to the positive information about the bidder's prospects rather than the expected performance monitoring by the target owners. Given the considerably small size and closely held ownership of private targets, which are in contrast with public targets and divested subsidiaries, bidders of private targets are unlikely to be motivated by the empire-building objectives. Instead, the characteristics of private targets imply that their bidders maximise the realisation of expected synergies rather than personal utility for the bidder managers. The closely held ownership and small size of private targets also imply that they are much easier to integratethan public targets or divested subsidiaries. The analysis of long-term bidder abnormalreturn reveals that while private-firm bidders breakeven during the post-acquisition period,11 there is evidence that public-finn bidders, and particularly bidders of divested subsidiaries, experience losses. The difference in ownership structure between private targets and public targets also leads to the difference in the change in ownership concentration in the bidders. While equity financing leads to a ceteris paribus increase in ownership concentration in privatefirm bidders, the opposite follows for public-firm bidders. The owners of a private target in an equity offer, as rational large shareholders, have economic incentives to monitor the performance of the bidder managers whereas atomistic shareholders of public targets in an equity offer do not. During the post-acquisition period, equity financing overall leads to a normal rate of return for private-firm bidders. This finding is consistent with the notion of rational pricing that the amount of compensation for the monitoring services by the target owners in equity offers reflects the incremental benefits of the services accruing to other bidder shareholders. In contrast, equity financing results in long-term losses for publicfirm bidders. Considering the differences in the wealth effects on bidder shareholders between private-firm takeovers and public-firm takeovers, this thesis also empirically explores two additional largely neglected issues. First, why do some bidders choose private targets and some others choose public targets or divested subsidiaries? Secondly, why equity financing rather than cash financing is used in some takeovers of private targets and not others (and vice versa)? In the main, the results of investigating the potential factors influencing bidders' target choice decision reveal the importance of managerial ism in the bidder and the pressure to improve growth prospects facing the bidder. However, hubris arising from past performance does not appear to affect bidders' target choice decision. Lll The analysis of the potential determinants of payment methods in private-firm takeovers shows that the level of informational asymmetry in private-firm takeovers is likely to be trivial. The analysis also provides evidence that the choice of payment methods in privatefirm takeovers is ceteris paribus endogenous to the investment objective(s) of the target owners and that agency conflicts in the bidder can deter the target owners who have the objective to hold equity stakes in the combined firm.

Organizational justice represents the study of fairness in organizational settings and there is evidence of substantive relationships between an individual’s perception of fairness in the workplace and their attitudes and behaviours. This subject has been largely overlooked in the context of an organizational merger or acquisition, which, considering the impact of employee resistance to change and its relationship with the persistently low achievement rate in mergers and acquisitions, raises a call for its potential influence to be examined. The study investigates the dynamics of perceived fairness within the specific change mechanisms of an organizational merger, and, in particular, considers the antecedents and outcomes of such a phenomenon. The use of a mixed methods design encompassed four separate phases, three of which were conducted within a recently merged university business school. In the first phase a survey revealed that fairness was an important factor in the employee evaluation process. Phase 2 consisted of a series of 25 staff interviews identifying and exploring the antecedents of organizational justice. In Phase 3, a second survey was introduced to test the significance of the key relationships to emerge from Phase 2. An NHS Trust, formed through the merger of two previously independent Trusts, provided the setting for Phase 4 of the study where the second survey, introduced during Phase 3, was administered amongst 386 employees. It was established from this study that the main antecedents of organizational justice evolved from ineffective communication mechanisms, a distrust of authorities and the merger procedures they implemented. The outcome of these perceived injustices was a belief that there had been a breach of psychological contract. The effect on behavioural and attitudinal outcomes from these perceived injustices was lower organizational citizenship behaviour, lower affective commitment and an increase in the intention to leave the organization in the near future.

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