Our paper examines two critical members in the top management “subteam” – CEO and CFO – in firms' merger and acquisition (M&A) decision. We propose a concept of CEO-CFO relative optimism, measured by CEO's optimism relative to CFO's pessimism, to capture the subteam's collective...

This study explores the implications of inter-firm status differentials for firm behaviors in corporate takeover transactions. We argue that the more the status differential between two firms is aligned with expectations of their roles embedded in the specific economic activity, the easier it is...