Numerous motives for merger have been proposed and empirically evaluated. While the avoidance of bankruptcy has been suggested as a plausible motive for merger in the financial literature, this motive has been the object of scant empirical investigation. Although recent empirical evidence...

In this study, we argue that data pertaining to a firm's reputation for satisfying stakeholder demands is informative on how both earnings and net book values are associated with firm value. We test our hypotheses on four key stakeholder groups: customers, employees, the community, and the...