Corporate Venturing, Allocation of Talent, and Competition for Star Managers

We provide new rationales for corporate venturing (CV), based on competition for talented managers. As returns to venturing increase, firms engage in CV for reasons other than capturing these returns. First, higher venturing returns increase managerial compensation, to which firms respond by increasing the power of incentives. Managers increase effort, prompting firms to reallocate them to new ventures, where the marginal product of effort is highest. Second, as returns to venturing become large, CV emerges as a way to recruit/retain managers who would otherwise choose alternative employment. We derive several testable empirical predictions about the determinants and structure of CV.corporate venture capital, venture capital, failure, competition, entrepreneur, manager

Product market competition and boundaries of the firm

This paper studies the effects of product market competition on firm boundaries. In a duopoly setting, each retailer is associated with a manufacturer who must decide how to allocate property rights over a retail asset. Delegating property rights over the retail asset to an indepedent retailer (`disintegration') transfers incentives from the manufacturer to the retailer and has the benefit of increasing product quality and profits, owing to the retailer's superior efficiency. However, it also forces the manufacturer to forfeit part of the profits. Competition increases the net benefit from delegation and leads to more efficient, vertically disintegrated structures.

Information Sharing and Incentives in Organizations

We examine optimal information flows between a manager and a worker who is in charge of evaluating a parameter of interest, e.g. the value of a project. The manager may possesses information about the parameter, and, if informed, may divulge her in- formation to the worker. We show that information sharing may weaken the worker's incentives and that, consequently, the manager may find it optimal to conceal her in- formation from the worker. Moreover, the manager faces a time-inconsistency problem, which leads her to conceal her information more often than she would if she could commit to an information sharing policy. We build on these results to address issues related to authority in organizations

Corporate Venture Capital: The Upside of Failure and Competition for Talent

We consider the motives for a firm to engage in corporate venturing. We argue that in case of failure of a new venture, corporate venture capitalists (CVC) have a strategic advantage relative to traditional venture capitalists (VC) in creating rents after rehiring or refinancing the entrepreneurs. Hence, corporate venturing induces the would-be entrepreneur to exert an effort that is higher than within the corporation, but lower than under traditional venture capital financing. Ceteris paribus, the entrepreneur ends up with fewer shares and less control under CVC financing than under traditional VC financing. Competition from venture capitalists increases corporate venturing activity, the salaries of potential entrepreneurs, and total economic output. Our results are consistent with the observed pro-cyclicality of corporate venture capital activity with venture capital activity.ou

Product Market Competition and Agency Costs

We model the effects of product market competition on agency costs, and develop two main empirical predictions. First, competition, by reducing agency costs, unambiguously increases the importance firms place on quality improvements. This leads to higher powered incentives, and in turn to increased effort and quality. Second, these effects are increasing in the severity of agency problems, and should be stronger in large, hierarchical corporations (where agency problems are more severe) than in entrepreneurial firms. We test the predictions of our model using a unique dataset with both firm and employee characteristics.Employment and unemployment, Hours of work and work arrangements, Labour, Wages, salaries and other earnings

Venture capital investment: the role of predator-prey dynamics with learning by doing

This paper suggests that endogenous dynamics of the 'predator-prey' type can provide a contributing explanation for both high-venture capital concentration by industry and 'boom and bust' industry-level investment dynamics. We propose a model based on the idea that venture capitalists favor industries where they have significant experience and industries with a large pool of good investment opportunities. However, investment 'uses up' opportunities and therefore tends to deplete the pool of unexploited opportunities. The resulting industry-level interactive dynamics naturally give rise to venture capital investment cycles similar to observed patterns.venture capital, dynamics, predator-prey, concentration, learning,

Corporate Venture Capital: The Upside of Failure and Competition for Talent

We consider the motives for a firm to engage in corporate venturing. We argue that in case of failure of a new venture, corporate venture capitalists (CVC) have a strategic advantage relative to traditional venture capitalists (VC) in creating rents after rehiring or refinancing the entrepreneurs. Hence, corporate venturing induces the would-be entrepreneur to exert an effort that is higher than within the corporation, but lower than under traditional venture capital financing. Ceteris paribus, the entrepreneur ends up with fewer shares and less control under CVC financing than under traditional VC financing. Competition from venture capitalists increases corporate venturing activity, the salaries of potential entrepreneurs, and total economic output. Our results are consistent with the observed pro-cyclicality of corporate venture capital activity with venture capital activity.competition; corporate venture capitalist; entrepreneur; failure; manager; venture capitalist