http://www.loc.gov/mods/v3 http://www.loc.gov/standards/mods/v3/mods-3-2.xsd
effects of acquisitions, divestitures and leveraged buyouts on firm employment structure: 1984-1989
The purpose of this research was to determine the effects of specific strategies for restructuring-acquisitions, divestitures, and LBOs-on the employment structure of the largest U.S. firms in the second half of the 1980s. The specific employment structures studied are those which have drawn much attention from the popular and business press, business professionals, scholars, and policy makers: the relative employment of persons in management positions, in manufacturing industries, financial industries and service industries, The use of firm level data for a national sample allowed this research to address the gap in corporate restructuring studies between those which examine performance outcomes for individual firms and those which look at employment outcomes aggregated at the national level without benefit of histories of restructuring for individual firms. Expectations for the effects of acquisitions, divestitures, and LBOs were derived from several theories on corporate restructuring and research studies on employment. The effects that were expected based on economic theories were not supported by this research. Agency claims that acquisitions are part of the discipline of the market for corporate control and occur when managers have used cash flows to build their organizations rather than make returns to investors, and therefore result in reduced management were not supported. Neither was the claim that firms taken private by LBOs are controlled by smaller headquarters units. The theory advanced Harrison and Bluestone that acquisitions and divestitures were used to decrease investment in manufacturing and increase investment in financial and service industries was also not supported by this research regarding employment. This does not mean that firms were not investing capital outside the firm in financial services, but rather that they were not trading units in manufacturing for FIRE and service industry units. However, the conclusion can be drawn that what Gordon found on the national level in aggregate data was also found in the firm level data for the largest U.S. firms: during the late 1980s, the proportion of managers remained stable regardless of acquisitions or divestitures. His treaties on "the myth of managerial downsizing" warrants further investigation.
Issued also on microfiche from University Microfilms Inc.
Includes bibliographical references: pages 81-86.