ABSTRACT Does national cultural distance create higher synergistic gains in cross‐border mergers and acquisitions (CBMAs)? Existing research on the role of cultural distance suggests that cultural disparities destroy shareholders’ wealth. Using an international sample of CBMAs over 19 years, we document that synergistic gains increase by 1.75 percentage points with one standard deviation increase in cultural distance. Drawing from the organizational learning theory, we suggest that learning diverse cultural practices in the post‐acquisition stage is a source of higher synergy gains. The positive association between cultural distance and synergies is more pronounced if the acquirer pays in stock and already has takeover experience. This suggests that better awareness of the target country's culture and risk management through stock payment are boundary conditions for higher gains. Overall, our results lead to the counter‐intuitive finding that CBMAs between firms from countries with dissimilar cultures are not always valued as destructive but depend on how merging firms learn the cultural practices of one another and manage integration challenges. We offer practical implications for regulators and policymakers about how the international takeover market can serve as a vehicle for learning new cultural practices and increasing combined firm value.

ABSTRACT Recently, the Covid‐19 uncertainties have raised interest in identifying factors that influence firms’ resilience. Existing Covid‐19 research primarily focused on market reactions and lockdown impacts, overlooking the influence of ideological diversity of firms’ directors on resilience. To address this gap, we examine personal contributions to the US Republican or Democratic parties by 11,741 directors from 328 S&P 500 firms, revealing their political ideologies. Our findings highlight that firms with diverse boards experience milder stock return declines during the Covid‐19 outbreak, indicating a positive link between ideological diversity and firm performance. This study presents evidence of the significant impact of ideological diversity in corporate boardrooms, showcasing how it affects firms’ resilience during times of extreme market uncertainty. Our findings emphasise the importance of revisiting the theories to explain the ideological diversity in shaping strategies to respond to uncertainty during unpredictable times. Based on social psychological theory alongside agency theory, the findings provide clear indications to practitioners that during future uncertainties, the ideological diversity of the board should be considered to optimise the board's potential to improve performance.

ABSTRACTThis study investigates the effect of competition networks among hedge fund managers on strategy distinctiveness and fund performance. Using a sample of 2711 US‐based hedge funds from the Lipper TASS database between 1994 and 2018, we construct a hedge fund competition network (HFCN) based on alumni and employment ties derived from LinkedIn profiles. We find that greater centrality in the HFCN, indicating closer proximity to peer competitors, is associated with lower abnormal performance. This effect is partially mediated by a decline in strategy distinctiveness, measured by the Strategy Distinctiveness Index (SDI). Funds with stronger network ties tend to exhibit greater return similarity with peers, suggesting that social proximity encourages strategic conformity. The results are robust across performance metrics, style classifications, and subsamples and are particularly pronounced among managers with strong cognitive profiles.

ABSTRACTUtilizing a micro‐level hedge fund dataset, we propose a methodology for estimating hedge fund leverage. Initially, we perform a Principal Component Analysis on a set of 49 risk factors for dimension deduction purposes. After acquiring 10 Principal Components, we deploy the Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operator regression (Lasso) per fund by seven 3‐year monthly non‐overlapping intervals in order to select which Principal Components affect each fund's return. As a last step, we execute a regression in the same manner as previously, with only the non‐zero Principal Components. By aggregating , we estimate an average sectorial leverage of 3.3 with an average of 58.2%. Moreover, we observe an analogous degree of Deleveraging in 2007–2009 that includes the 2008 financial crisis as in 2019–2021 that includes the COVID‐19 stress period.