Making great minds think alike: Emerging market multinational firms’ leadership effects on targets’ employee psychological safety after cross-border mergers and acquisitions

•We examine the impact of leadership on targets’ employee psychological safety (EPS).•The cross-border M&As by Indian and Chinese companies is the context of this study.•The leadership visibility has no impact and the leadership trust has positive effect on the EPS.•The deal status has a moderating effect on the leadership visibility and positively affect the EPS.•There is evidence of target country differences in terms of the effect of leadership on EPS.

This paper examines the impact of leadership on targets’ employee psychological safety (EPS), characterized by employees’ expectation of job and remuneration stability, during the cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&As) by emerging market multinational companies (EMNEs). The M&As by Indian and Chinese companies forms the empirical context of this study and the case survey method is used to examine the effect of leadership on EPS. The results show that the EMNEs’ leadership visibility during the M&A process has no impact on the EPS, whereas, the trust in the EMNEs’ leadership has positive effect on the EPS. The deal status has a moderating effect on the leadership visibility and positively affects the EPS. This research finds evidence of target country differences in terms of the effect of EMNEs’ leadership on EPS and limited evidence of such effect for acquirer nationality differences.