Brief Dissertation Overview
In three essays of my dissertation, I propose to examine novel research questions about acquisitions by incorporating the dynamics that emerge from employees. In particular, I study (1) which employees are more likely to stay or depart after a corporate acquisition; (2) when the employees of the acquiring firm are able to draw knowledge from, and transfer knowledge to, the employees of the target firm; and (3) how pre-acquisition employee mobility can help firms to select acquisition targets. In the three essays, I take advantage of individual-level data in order to answer questions that the existing M&A literature has not yet fully addressed. Empirically, I focus on acquisitions where the participating firms have patents from the USPTO in order to follow the inventors employed by these firms.
