How venture capital networks form: with whom shall I dance?

Abstract not available

Venture Capitalists’ vs. Philanthropic Venture Capitalists’ Human Capital: An Exploratory Study

Philanthropic venture capital (PhVC), like traditional venture capital (TVC), provides funding and value added services to its portfolio ventures, but unlike TVC, these investees typically have a social mission. PhVC has a main ethical dimension and aims at maximizing the social return on the investment. This paper examines nascent PhVC firms and, in particular, focuses on its human capital (HC), offering a comparative analysis with nascent TVC firms. Results show that both at a general and at a specific HC level, PhVC firms are different from TVC firms. With respect to general HC, PhVC firms tend to exhibit lower levels of education at the BS and MBA levels but a higher number of graduate technical degrees, suggesting the existence of a substitution effect in education. At the specific HC level, PhVC firms exhibit lower experience than TVC firms, except for governmental, and non/profit experience; differences at firm level between commercial and social specific HC hold significant

Ingredients Matter: How the Human Capital of Philanthropic and Traditional Venture Capital Differs

Philanthropic venture capital (PhVC), like traditional venture capital (TVC), provides funding and value-added services to a portfolio of entrepreneurial firms. However, TVC differs from PhVC, as the primary goal of TVC is to maximize the economic return of its investments. In contrast, PhVC firms expect their portfolio companies to perform well in terms of both social and economic returns. Using both American and European firms, this paper explores and compares the human capital in PhVC and TVC firm founders. Our results show that there are key differences in both general and specific human capital between these firm types. While both TVC and PhVC firm founders have high levels of commercial experience, TVC firm founders tend to hold degrees in science, engineering, business, and law more frequently than PhVC firm founders. PhVC founders also differ from TVC founders by having greater work experience in the social sector

What's Holding Back Social Entrepreneurship? Removing the Impediments to Theoretical Advancement

This article summarizes four contributions that were presented in a professional development workshop at the 2013 Academy of Management conference. The goal of the workshop was to discuss impediments to the theoretical advancement of social entrepreneurship. This paper's first two contributors discuss assumptions and boundaries of social entrepreneurship, exhibiting contrasting views of whether theory should be aggregated or disaggregated. The other two scholars focus on specific topics that advance social entrepreneurship research, specifically, studying the implicit normative underpinning of social entrepreneurship and social innovation processes. This is part three of a three-part series dealing with the future of social entrepreneurship research and theor

Social Entrepreneurship and Broader Theories: Shedding New Light on the ‘Bigger Picture’

This article documents the results of a research workshop bringing together six perspectives on social entrepreneurship. The idea was to challenge existing concepts of the economy, the firm, and entrepreneurship in order to shed new light on social entrepreneurship and on our existing theoretical frameworks. The first two contributions use a macro-perspective and discuss the notion of adaptive societies and the tragedies of disharmonization, respectively. Taking a management perspective, the next two focus on the limits of conventional assumptions in management theory, particularly human capital theory and resource-based view. The final two contributions follow an entrepreneurship perspective highlighting the usefulness of mobilization theory and the business model lens to social entrepreneurship. Despite this diversity, all contributions share the fact that they challenge narrow definitions of the unit of analysis in social entrepreneurship; they illustrate the aspect of social embeddedness, and they argue for an open-but-disciplined diversity of theories in social entrepreneurship research