Employee productivity, employment growth and the cross-border acquisitions by emerging market firms

Ataullah, Ali and Le, Hang and Sahota, Amandeep S. (2014) Employee productivity, employment growth and the cross-border acquisitions by emerging market firms. Human Resource Management, 53 (6). pp. 987-1004. ISSN 0090-4848 (https://doi.org/10.1002/hrm.21619)

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Abstract

We examine the impact of the cross-border acquisitions made by firms from emerging markets on employee productivity and employment growth. The recent literature suggests that cross-border acquisitions enable emerging market firms to obtain new skills and knowledge-intensive assets, which, in turn, may lead to an increase in productivity. However, our empirical analysis suggests that cross-border acquisitions reduce employee productivity and have a limited impact on employment growth. Moreover, the adverse effect on productivity is associated with the cross-border acquisitions in less-developed countries and countries with considerably different national cultures. Overall, our findings cast doubt on the idea that cross-border acquisitions enable emerging market firms to improve the productivity of one of their most important resources, namely, their human capital.