Darryl Laws

 Each participant will possess more than fifteen (15) years mergers and acquisitions experience in his / her respective filed of: M&A law, M&A corporate finance, M&A transactional structuring and mergers and acquisitions negotiation tactics and strategies with firsthand experience in working with and dealing with irrational human behaviors such as CEO overconfidence and exuberance.

When conducting the five (5)  interviews the researcher will use a non-participant style as such as not to influence verbal responses and non-verbal reactions to open-ended questions. Directive input will only be used IF the researcher requires greater clarity to a response provided that the interviewee(s) is willing.

The researcher will field test a sample questionnaire with several of his own private equity fund’s managing directors in order to ascertain whether or not the questions constructed for use in the study are situationally relevant and to ensure that the data extracted from the responses to the questions are valid and reliable. Consistency will be assessed through test-retest reproducibility by asking some of the participants the same questions several times throughout the interview process. Some of the questions will be asked in more than one way to assess internal consistency. Acceptability will be determined by asking the participants how they found answering the questionnaire during the validity testing. A sample of interview questions are contained in Appendix A (attached). 

Game Theory models used for human behavior interaction (Quantitative Research Method approach). 

What is Game Theory? Game theory is the study of how rational agents behave in strategic situations where each agent must know the decisions of the other agents before knowing which decision is best for himself / herself. Nonstrategic decisions can be made without taking the decisions that others make into account, as opposed to strategic decisions. Game theory is used to study economic behavior, human behavior, warfare, political negotiation and the capital markets. Game theory’s features include: 1) neoclassical economics: a) generality–applies to many domains, b) precision–produces clear predictions and c) accuracy– predictions are tested by field data; 2) behavioral economics: all of above plus psychological plausibility–fit data on how individuals think and perceive. Variables of a game theory game model include: 

1. The players who are interacting? How many players are there? Does nature/chance play a role? 

2. Strategies - a complete description of what the players can do and the set of all possible actions. 

3. Information: what do players know or believe about the situation and about one another? 

4. What information do they  have available when choosing their actions? 

5. Payoff. How do strategies translate to outcomes? What are the players preferences over possible outcomes? A description of the payoff consequences for each player for every possible combination of actions chosen by all players playing the game.