Motives and Non-Economic Reasons for Bank Mergers and Acquisitions

This paper aims to identify non-economic reasons for bank mergers and examines their influence vis-a-vis economic reasons. The authors expand the current economic literature by applying methods from psychological research, which acknowledges the existence of personal motives and managerial self-interest, but mostly fails to prove their importance. Personality inventories, interviews, and scenarios are used to investigate the relationship between selected motives (power, achievement, sensation seeking, and prestige) and decision-making behavior of 20 German bank managers and 40 subjects of a control group. A multiple regression analysis demonstrates the predictability of behavior according to the prominence of the four motives. Furthermore, the results support the conclusion that managers tend to accept great economic disadvantages in following their own motives. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]