Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Date of Degree

6-2026

Document Type

Doctoral Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Program

Business

Advisor

C. Justice Tillman

Committee Members

Karl R. Lang

Tsedale M. Melaku

dt ogilvie

Subject Categories

Business

Keywords

Artificial Intelligence, CEO PersonalityTrait, Deal Completion, Mergers & Acquisitions, Performance, Pharmaceutical Industry

Abstract

In Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A), a deal is completed when it has been announced, a fully executed agreement is in place, and the target's ownership is consolidated with the acquirer. The completion of an M&A deal is vital because it is a labor-intensive process that requires a tremendous number of resources from the firm. Yet even though 39,494 deals were announced in 2025, few studies have examined the variables that influence deal completion. This dissertation examines whether the Chief Executive Officer (CEO)'s personality influences the likelihood of deal completion. CEOs typically initiate the deal and see it through to completion, even though several other parties are involved, including boards, advisors, regulators, and investment bankers. Leveraging upper echelons theory, this dissertation examines the impact of CEO personality traits on the likelihood of deal completion using the Five-Factor Model (FFM), which delineates personality traits into five traits: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. These personality traits are also known as the "Big Five" model. Through the analysis of 881 announced M&A deals in the pharmaceutical industry (SIC code 2834) of US public firms from 2011 to 2018. Personality traits are measured using the Open Language Chief Executive Officer Personality Tool (OLCPT) (Harrison, Boivie, Hubbard, & Petrenko, 2024), which analyzes the words of a CEO from the question-and-answer portion of earnings calls. There are 5 hypotheses that are tested using logistic regression, with deal completion coded as a binary outcome and relevant CEO and firm-level controls included in the model. The results show that agreeableness is the main CEO personality trait that significantly predicts M&A completion in the pharmaceutical industry, with higher agreeableness associated with a lower likelihood of deal completion. The other four personality traits are not statistically significant. Among the control variables, total assets, financial leverage, and CEO tenure are significant. Overall, this dissertation lays the foundation for exploring the influence of CEO personality on M&A completion across all industries and extends upper echelons theory to the context of acquisition outcomes.

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