Business PhD Spotlight: Weisu Yu

PhD candidate Weisu Yu’s academic journey was inspired by her father. His passion for research as a distinguished university scholar sparked her own curiosity about understanding the world through different methods. While pursuing her master’s degree in finance, Weisu found her interest in understanding the finance world.

“During my first year in the master’s program at the University of Saskatchewan, I was hired as research assistant. We worked on a project analyzing company merger decisions,” says Weisu. “The world of corporate finance fascinates me. I thought finance was all about working for banks and making a lot of money, but it is much more than that. The blend of theory and practice, the influence on society, businesses and individuals, the tension and conflicts between different parties; so much needs to be understood and explained. This is what ultimately led me to pursue a PhD in Finance.”

After completing her master’s degree, Weisu joined the PhD program at the Alberta School of Business and has been working with her supervisor, professor Lukas Roth.

“Both of my previous supervisors are excellent researchers and graduates from University of Alberta. I was also impressed by the quality of research being done by finance scholars here at the U of A and how Professor Roth’s work aligned with my own research interests,” states Weisu. 

Weisu’s research explores how companies make investment decisions and the role of their CEOs in shaping those decisions. The core question Weisu is trying to answer is whether changes in a CEO’s social status influence his or her characteristics, such as overconfidence, and a company’s decision-making process, particularly regarding mergers and acquisitions (M&A).

Over the last two decades, the market for top U.S. corporate executives has evolved to fit the definition of a superstar system, where a small group of people enjoy a highly skewed distribution of income and public attention. While the effects of CEOs gaining the superstar status on a company’s financial performance have been closely investigated, Weisu focuses on the effects of the superstar status on a company’s M&A activities. 

So far, Weisu’s findings reveal that, after winning prestigious awards, CEOs tend to become more overconfident, compared to both their prior overconfidence level and their competitors’ (who did not win the award) overconfidence level. Weisu further demonstrates that firms led by superstar CEOs engage in more merger activities compared to their competitors, with this effect peaking two to three years after the CEO’s first award. Moreover, superstar CEOs are more likely to undertake riskier mergers, such as cross-border and cross-industry deals.

Weisu’s work contributes to the growing body of literature on how CEO attributes influence corporate decision-making. Her research has been published in the esteemed Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money.

Weisu Yu joined the Alberta School of Business in 2018 as a PhD student specializing in Finance, under the supervision of professor Lukas Roth.