Abstract: To understand objectively the transnational merger and acquisition (M&A) of Chinese companies during the post-financial crisis period， and provide a useful reference for future transnational M&A decisions， senior executives’ overconfidence was examined by applying the shareholding change method and using the data samples from the listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen exchange markets that carried out transnational M&A during 2008-2010. Then the assessment indexes of transnational M&A performance were formulated with factor analysis， and the impacts of senior executives’ overconfidence on transnational M&A performance were explored with descriptive statistical analysis， simple correlation analysis and partial correlation analysis. The results showed that the senior executives’ overconfidence in China’s listed companies has a positively significant correlationship with the performance of the year before transnational M&A and a negatively significant correlationship with the performance of the year after. Moreover， it is negatively correlated to the performance of the year and the two years after transnational M&A， but its significance varies with different research data and methods.

Key words: senior executive, overconfidence, transnational merger and acquisition (M&A), transnational M&A performance, listed company