Viput OngsakulPattanaporn ChatjuthamardPornsit JirapornSirithida ChaivisuttangkunSasin School of Management, BangkokPenn State Great ValleyMahidol UniversityThailand National Institute of Development AdministrationSecurities and Exchange Commission (SEC) of Thailand2022-08-042022-08-042021-12-01Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance. Vol.32, (2021)22146369221463502-s2.0-85116824959https://repository.li.mahidol.ac.th/handle/20.500.14594/76872Exploiting an innovative measure of corporate integrity based on machine learning and textual analysis, this paper explores the effect of hostile takeover exposure on corporate integrity. Using a measure of takeover vulnerability principally based on state legislation, we find that a more active takeover market raises corporate integrity, corroborating the notion that the disciplinary mechanism associated with the takeover market induces managers to enhance corporate integrity. Specifically, a rise in takeover exposure by one standard deviation results in an improvement in integrity by 4.00%. Further analysis confirms the conclusion including propensity score matching, entropy balancing, and instrumental-variable analysis. Our study is among the first to employ this novel text-based measure of corporate integrity. Finally, additional analysis based on ”CEO luck” validates the conclusion.Mahidol UniversityEconomics, Econometrics and FinanceArticleSCOPUS10.1016/j.jbef.2021.100579