IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/entthe/v44y2020i3p475-503.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

How and When Investment Horizons Determine Venture Capital Firms’ Attention Breadth to Portfolio Companies

Author

Listed:
  • Violetta Bacon-Gerasymenko
  • Jonathan D. Arthurs
  • Sam Y. Cho

Abstract

This study develops and tests a theory about the antecedents of venture capital firms’ (VCs’) attention breadth to their portfolio companies (PFCs). We find that VCs expand their attention breadth but only up to a certain level of expected investment horizons for each PFC, after which attention breadth narrows. We also find that this inverted U-shaped relationship is contingent upon the VC investment horizon dispersion and the number of co-investors in a given PFC. Our research advances the entrepreneurship and venture capital literature and provides novel insight into the broader literature on investment horizons and strategic alliances.

Suggested Citation

  • Violetta Bacon-Gerasymenko & Jonathan D. Arthurs & Sam Y. Cho, 2020. "How and When Investment Horizons Determine Venture Capital Firms’ Attention Breadth to Portfolio Companies," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 44(3), pages 475-503, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:entthe:v:44:y:2020:i:3:p:475-503
    DOI: 10.1177/1042258718824957
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1042258718824957
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/1042258718824957?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David Marginson & Laurie McAulay, 2008. "Exploring the debate on short‐termism: a theoretical and empirical analysis," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(3), pages 273-292, March.
    2. Manigart, Sophie & De Waele, Koen & Wright, Mike & Robbie, Ken & Desbrieres, Philippe & Sapienza, Harry J. & Beekman, Amy, 2002. "Determinants of required return in venture capital investments: a five-country study," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 17(4), pages 291-312, July.
    3. Dimo Dimov & Pablo Martin de Holan, 2010. "Firm Experience and Market Entry by Venture Capital Firms (1962–2004)," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47(1), pages 130-161, January.
    4. Nanda, Ramana & Rhodes-Kropf, Matthew, 2013. "Investment cycles and startup innovation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(2), pages 403-418.
    5. James A. Brander & Raphael Amit & Werner Antweiler, 2002. "Venture‐Capital Syndication: Improved Venture Selection vs. The Value‐Added Hypothesis," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 11(3), pages 423-452, September.
    6. Steven N. Kaplan & Antoinette Schoar, 2005. "Private Equity Performance: Returns, Persistence, and Capital Flows," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(4), pages 1791-1823, August.
    7. Thomas Dalziel & Robert E. White & Jonathan D. Arthurs, 2011. "Principal Costs in Initial Public Offerings," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48, pages 1346-1364, September.
    8. Jo Thori Lind & Halvor Mehlum, 2010. "With or Without U? The Appropriate Test for a U‐Shaped Relationship," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 72(1), pages 109-118, February.
    9. Hana Milanov & Dean A. Shepherd, 2013. "The importance of the first relationship: The ongoing influence of initial network on future status," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34(6), pages 727-750, June.
    10. Douglas J. Cumming, 2006. "The Determinants of Venture Capital Portfolio Size: Empirical Evidence," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 79(3), pages 1083-1126, May.
    11. Nooteboom, B. & Berger, H. & Noorderhaven, N.G., 1997. "Effects of trust and governance on relational risk," Other publications TiSEM 8e83932e-064c-40e8-afe7-4, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    12. Richard F. J. Haans & Constant Pieters & Zi-Lin He, 2016. "Thinking about U: Theorizing and testing U- and inverted U-shaped relationships in strategy research," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(7), pages 1177-1195, July.
    13. Rosenbusch, Nina & Brinckmann, Jan & Müller, Verena, 2013. "Does acquiring venture capital pay off for the funded firms? A meta-analysis on the relationship between venture capital investment and funded firm financial performance," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 335-353.
    14. Sartori, Anne E., 2003. "An Estimator for Some Binary-Outcome Selection Models Without Exclusion Restrictions," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 11(2), pages 111-138, April.
    15. Christian Hopp, 2010. "When do venture capitalists collaborate? Evidence on the driving forces of venture capital syndication," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 35(4), pages 417-431, November.
    16. Baum, Joel A. C. & Silverman, Brian S., 2004. "Picking winners or building them? Alliance, intellectual, and human capital as selection criteria in venture financing and performance of biotechnology startups," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 19(3), pages 411-436, May.
    17. Steven N. Kaplan & Berk A. Sensoy & Per Strömberg, 2009. "Should Investors Bet on the Jockey or the Horse? Evidence from the Evolution of Firms from Early Business Plans to Public Companies," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 64(1), pages 75-115, February.
    18. Sapienza, Harry J. & Manigart, Sophie & Vermeir, Wim, 1996. "Venture capitalist governance and value added in four countries," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 11(6), pages 439-469, November.
    19. Dirk De Clercq & Vance H. Fried, 2005. "Executive forum: How entrepreneurial company performance can be improved through venture capitalists' communication and commitment," Venture Capital, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 7(3), pages 285-294, July.
    20. Christian Hopp & Finn Rieder, 2011. "What drives venture capital syndication?," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(23), pages 3089-3102.
    21. Nahata, Rajarishi, 2008. "Venture capital reputation and investment performance," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(2), pages 127-151, November.
    22. Michel Ferrary, 2010. "Syndication of Venture Capital Investment: The Art of Resource Pooling," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 34(5), pages 885-908, September.
    23. Dimov, Dimo & Milanov, Hana, 2010. "The interplay of need and opportunity in venture capital investment syndication," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 25(4), pages 331-348, July.
    24. Guilhem Bascle, 2008. "Controlling for endogeneity with instrumental variables in strategic management research," Post-Print hal-00576795, HAL.
    25. Beckman, Christine M. & Burton, M. Diane & O'Reilly, Charles, 2007. "Early teams: The impact of team demography on VC financing and going public," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 147-173, March.
    26. Sapienza, Harry J., 1992. "When do venture capitalists add value?," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 7(1), pages 9-27, January.
    27. Sophie Manigart & Andy Lockett & Miguel Meuleman & Mike Wright & Hans Landström & Hans Bruining & Philippe Desbrières & Ulrich Hommel, 2006. "Venture Capitalists' Decision to Syndicate," Post-Print halshs-00078062, HAL.
    28. David Laibson, 1997. "Golden Eggs and Hyperbolic Discounting," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(2), pages 443-478.
    29. Phillips McDougall, Patricia & Shane, Scott & Oviatt, Benjamin M., 1994. "Explaining the formation of international new ventures: The limits of theories from international business research," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 9(6), pages 469-487, November.
    30. Ernst Verwaal & Hans Bruining & Mike Wright & Sophie Manigart & Andy Lockett, 2010. "Resources access needs and capabilities as mediators of the relationship between VC firm size and syndication," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 34(3), pages 277-291, April.
    31. Bygrave, William D., 1987. "Syndicated investments by venture capital firms: A networking perspective," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 2(2), pages 139-154.
    32. Ruihua Joy Jiang & Qingjiu Tom Tao & Michael D. Santoro, 2010. "Alliance portfolio diversity and firm performance," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(10), pages 1136-1144, October.
    33. Ranjay Gulati & Paul R. Lawrence & Phanish Puranam, 2005. "Adaptation in vertical relationships: beyond incentive conflict," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(5), pages 415-440, May.
    34. Lee, Peggy M. & Wahal, Sunil, 2004. "Grandstanding, certification and the underpricing of venture capital backed IPOs," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(2), pages 375-407, August.
    35. David Souder & Philip Bromiley, 2012. "Explaining temporal orientation: Evidence from the durability of firms' capital investments," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(5), pages 550-569, May.
    36. Andrews,Donald W. K. & Stock,James H. (ed.), 2005. "Identification and Inference for Econometric Models," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521844413, September.
    37. Partha Dasgupta & Eric Maskin, 2005. "Uncertainty and Hyperbolic Discounting," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(4), pages 1290-1299, September.
    38. David Souder & J. Myles Shaver, 2010. "Constraints and incentives for making long horizon corporate investments," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(12), pages 1316-1336, December.
    39. David Souder & Greg Reilly & Philip Bromiley & Scott Mitchell, 2016. "A Behavioral Understanding of Investment Horizon and Firm Performance," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 27(5), pages 1202-1218, October.
    40. Mike Wright & Andy Lockett, 2003. "The Structure and Management of Alliances: Syndication in the Venture Capital Industry," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(8), pages 2073-2102, December.
    41. Graham, John R. & Harvey, Campbell R., 2001. "The theory and practice of corporate finance: evidence from the field," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(2-3), pages 187-243, May.
    42. William Ocasio, 1997. "Towards An Attention‐Based View Of The Firm," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(S1), pages 187-206, July.
    43. Markus Fitza & Sharon F. Matusik & Elaine Mosakowski, 2009. "Do VCs matter? the importance of owners on performance variance in start‐up firms," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(4), pages 387-404, April.
    44. Forbes, Daniel P. & Korsgaard, M. Audrey & Sapienza, Harry J., 2010. "Financing decisions as a source of conflict in venture boards," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 25(6), pages 579-592, November.
    45. Macmillan, Ian C. & Kulow, David M. & Khoylian, Roubina, 1989. "Venture capitalists' involvement in their investments: Extent and performance," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 4(1), pages 27-47, January.
    46. Lockett, Andy & Wright, Mike, 2001. "The syndication of venture capital investments," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 29(5), pages 375-390, October.
    47. Laura Bottazzi & Marco Da Rin, 2002. "Venture capital in Europe and the financing of innovative companies [‘Robust financial contracting and the role of venture capitalists’]," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 17(34), pages 229-270.
    48. Dirk De Clercq & Dimo Dimov, 2008. "Internal Knowledge Development and External Knowledge Access in Venture Capital Investment Performance," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(3), pages 585-612, May.
    49. Busenitz, Lowell W. & Fiet, James O. & Moesel, Douglas D., 2004. "Reconsidering the venture capitalists' "value added" proposition: An interorganizational learning perspective," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 19(6), pages 787-807, November.
    50. Jean-Noël Barrot, 2017. "Investor Horizon and the Life Cycle of Innovative Firms: Evidence from Venture Capital," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(9), pages 3021-3043, September.
    51. Gifford, Sharon, 1997. "Limited attention and the role of the venture capitalist," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 12(6), pages 459-482, November.
    52. Garry D. Bruton & Igor Filatotchev & Salim Chahine & Mike Wright, 2010. "Governance, ownership structure, and performance of IPO firms: the impact of different types of private equity investors and institutional environments," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(5), pages 491-509, May.
    53. Joshua Lerner, 1994. "The Syndication of Venture Capital Investments," Financial Management, Financial Management Association, vol. 23(3), Fall.
    54. Donal Crilly & Pamela Sloan, 2012. "Enterprise logic: explaining corporate attention to stakeholders from the ‘inside‐out’," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(10), pages 1174-1193, October.
    55. Dirk De Clercq & Sophie Manigart., 2007. "The Venture Capital Post-investment Phase: Opening the Black Box of Involvement," Chapters, in: Hans Landström (ed.), Handbook of Research on Venture Capital, chapter 7, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    56. Gompers, Paul A., 1996. "Grandstanding in the venture capital industry," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 133-156, September.
    57. Dimov, Dimo P. & Shepherd, Dean A., 2005. "Human capital theory and venture capital firms: exploring "home runs" and "strike outs"," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 20(1), pages 1-21, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Burström, Thommie & Lahti, Tom & Parida, Vinit & Wartiovaara, Markus & Wincent, Joakim, 2023. "A definition, review, and extension of global ecosystems theory: Trends, architecture and orchestration of global VCs and mechanisms behind unicorns," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 157(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Rosenbusch, Nina & Brinckmann, Jan & Müller, Verena, 2013. "Does acquiring venture capital pay off for the funded firms? A meta-analysis on the relationship between venture capital investment and funded firm financial performance," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 335-353.
    2. Lohwasser, Todor S., 2020. "Meta-analyzing the relative performance of venture capital-backed firms," Discussion Papers of the Institute for Organisational Economics 4/2020, University of Münster, Institute for Organisational Economics.
    3. Bart Clarysse & Annelies Bobelyn & Itxaso Palacio Aguirre, 2013. "Learning from own and others’ previous experience: the contribution of the venture capital firm to the likelihood of a portfolio company’s trade sale," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 40(3), pages 575-590, April.
    4. Violetta Bacon-Gerasymenko & Russell Coff & Rodolphe Durand, 2016. "Taking a Second Look in a Warped Crystal Ball: Explaining the Accuracy of Revised Forecasts," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(8), pages 1292-1319, December.
    5. Mikko Jääskeläinen & Markku Maula & Tuukka Seppä, 2006. "Allocation of Attention to Portfolio Companies and the Performance of Venture Capital Firms," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 30(2), pages 185-206, March.
    6. Rin, Marco Da & Hellmann, Thomas & Puri, Manju, 2013. "A Survey of Venture Capital Research," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 573-648, Elsevier.
    7. Poonam Khanna & Lemaro Thompson & Michael Mcdonald, 2015. "Research On Venture Capital Firms’ ‘Investment Behavior A Review’," Working Papers 0197mgt, College of Business, University of Texas at San Antonio.
    8. Douglas Cumming & Satish Kumar & Weng Marc Lim & Nitesh Pandey, 2023. "Mapping the venture capital and private equity research: a bibliometric review and future research agenda," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 61(1), pages 173-221, June.
    9. Gerasymenko, Violetta & Arthurs, Jonathan D., 2014. "New insights into venture capitalists' activity: IPO and time-to-exit forecast as antecedents of their post-investment involvement," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 29(3), pages 405-420.
    10. Dimo Dimov & Dirk De Clercq, 2006. "Venture Capital Investment Strategy and Portfolio Failure Rate: A Longitudinal Study," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 30(2), pages 207-223, March.
    11. Dimov, Dimo & Milanov, Hana, 2010. "The interplay of need and opportunity in venture capital investment syndication," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 25(4), pages 331-348, July.
    12. Li, Yong & Vertinsky, Ilan B. & Li, Jing, 2014. "National distances, international experience, and venture capital investment performance," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 471-489.
    13. Yuejia Zhang, 2018. "Gain or pain? New evidence on mixed syndication between governmental and private venture capital firms in China," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 51(4), pages 995-1031, December.
    14. Sunny Hahn & Jina Kang, 2017. "Complementary or conflictory?: the effects of the composition of the syndicate on venture capital-backed IPOs in the US stock market," Economia e Politica Industriale: Journal of Industrial and Business Economics, Springer;Associazione Amici di Economia e Politica Industriale, vol. 44(1), pages 77-102, March.
    15. Cristiano Bellavitis & Christian Fisch & Rod B. McNaughton, 2022. "COVID-19 and the global venture capital landscape," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 59(3), pages 781-805, October.
    16. Douglas Cumming & Sofia Johan, 2006. "Provincial preferences in private equity," Financial Markets and Portfolio Management, Springer;Swiss Society for Financial Market Research, vol. 20(4), pages 369-398, December.
    17. Colombo, Massimo G. & Guerini, Massimiliano & Hoisl, Karin & Zeiner, Nico M., 2023. "The dark side of signals: Patents protecting radical inventions and venture capital investments," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(5).
    18. Dirk De Clercq & Harry J. Sapienza & Akbar Zaheer, 2008. "Firm and Group Influences on Venture Capital Firms’ Involvement in New Ventures," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(7), pages 1169-1194, November.
    19. Schilder, Dirk, 2007. "Venture capital syndicate networks: the determinants of interconnectedness," Freiberg Working Papers 2007/03, TU Bergakademie Freiberg, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration.
    20. Guo, Liang & Wei, Yinghong Susan & Sharma, Ruchi & Rong, Ke, 2017. "Investigating e-business models’ value retention for start-ups: The moderating role of venture capital investment intensity," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 186(C), pages 33-45.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:entthe:v:44:y:2020:i:3:p:475-503. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.