Research on CEO narcissism and mergers and acquisitions of listed companies

Based on the upper echelons theory, this paper uses an empirical study to examine the impact of CEO narcissism on M&A decisions and the moderating effects of media attention and CEO equity incentives. In order to further explore the relationship and mechanism between CEO narcissism and M & A behavior of listed companies in China, this paper uses the size of CEO signature to measure the degree of CEO narcissism and uses the data of Chinese A-share listed companies from 2011 to 2020 for analysis. The results show that CEO narcissism has a significant positive effect on firm M&A decisions; media attention plays a positive moderating role between CEO narcissism and M&A decisions; and the positive effect of CEO narcissism on M&A decisions is more significant when the CEO owns shares of the firm. The existing literature rarely considers media attention and equity incentives as factors influencing the relationship between CEO narcissism and M&A decisions. This paper creatively analyzes the moderating role of media attention and equity incentives, thus broadening the scope of research on CEO narcissism. The findings of this paper establish a better theoretical and practical understanding for a more comprehensive study of how CEO narcissistic personality affects a firm's M&A behavior.