Top management turnover in related M & A's: An additional test of the theory of relative standing

To date, the most promising attempt to explain departure rates of executive s of acquired firms examined the conditions that create perceptions of rela tive standing, but did not gauge the perceptions themselves. This study ext ends this line of research by surveying the post-merger perceptions of the top managers of firms acquired in friendly, related deals. We used a two-st age data collection design with the attempt to explain turnover in the firs t three years following the acquisition, and also predict it in the fourth year.