Venture Capitalists' Evaluations of Start-up Teams: Trade-offs, Knock-out Criteria, and the Impact of VC Experience

The start-up team plays a key role in venture capitalists' evaluations of venture proposals. Our findings go beyond existing research, first by providing a detailed exploration of VCs' team evaluation criteria, and second by investigating the moderator variable of VC experience. Our results reveal utility trade-offs between team characteristics and thus provide answers to questions such as "What strength does it take to compensate for a weakness in characteristic A?" Moreover, our analysis reveals that novice VCs tend to focus on the qualifications of individual team members, while experienced VCs focus more on team cohesion. Data was obtained in a conjoint experiment with 51 professionals in VC firms and analyzed using discrete choice econometric models. (author's abstract

Entrepreneurial Marketing

Entrepreneurship is one of the youngest disciplines in the area of business administration. Hence, there is a special need for literature that can be used in teaching and that can serve as a basis for research. This article reviews five textbooks and three research-oriented books on entrepreneurial marketing, which is regarded as one of the key areas of entrepreneurship. As the review shows, there is no textbook that covers all relevant aspects of entrepreneurial marketing in sufficient breadth and depth. Most books are dominated by contents from general marketing, despite the fact that emerging firms face some very specific challenges in their marketing activities. Our review of the research-oriented literature uncovers a need for more detailed studies that address distinct phenomena in entrepreneurial marketing. Thus, this new and vibrant field offers plenty of opportunities to generate important research findings

Finanzielle Entwicklung junger Wachstumsunternehmen

One of the biggest difficulties for founders of new ventures is to raise capital for their entrepreneurial endeavors. Based on a discussion of several models of firm development, this paper analyses the financing requirements of young growth companies and describes which sources of financing are available to these firms at different stages of their development. Special emphasis is put on venture capital financing, as this form of financing is particularly suited for young firms with a high potential for growth and value generation. A discussion of the challenges which these firms face when they want to control their financial development concludes this paper

Knowledge Acquisition Activities, Prior Knowledge and Experience & the Survival of New Firms

Knowledge acquisition activities occurring may be just as critical to firm survival as pre-existing knowledge and experience, because knowledge acquisition activities enable the augmentation of existing knowledge and the exploration and pursuit of new strategic directions. Drawing from organization theory and entrepreneurship theory, we examine two important sets of knowledge acquisition activities: knowledge acquired through planning and knowledge acquired through learning by doing. We examine the direct impact of these activities on the survival of new firms and examine the extent to which planning and learning by doing can compensate for low prior knowledge and/or management experience. We find that while learning by doing promotes firm survival and can compensate, planning deters firm survival and can not compensate

Die Rolle des Corporate Foresight im Innovationsprozess: Ziele, Ausgestaltung und Erfahrungen am Beispiel der Siemens AG

This article focuses on activities of corporate foresight that constitute one of the core elements of strategic innovation management. Hence, corporate foresight plays a crucial role for the mid- to longterm competitiveness of firms. It typically comprises the stages of idea generation to idea selection. Forecasting activities are of particular importance to corporate foresight as they allow detecting future trends and discontinuities such as technology shocks. Though there is much theoretical knowledge on corporate foresight activities, there is only little empirical evidence that shows how these activities are actually conducted in practice. Using the example of the Siemens AG, this article reveals how corporate foresight is professionally implemented in this company, which goals are pursued with it and what kind of experiences have been made so far. In particular, the motivation of all employees who are engaged in this process and the general acceptance of the foresight process have been key to its success

Crystal field analysis of Pm3+^{3+} (4f4)andSm^{f4}) and Sm^{3+}(4 (4^{f5}) and lattice location studies of 147^{147}Nd and 147^{147}Pm in w-AlN

We report a detailed crystal field analysis of Pm3+ and Sm3+ as well as lattice location studies of 147Pm and 147Nd in 2H-aluminum nitride (w-AlN). The isotopes of mass 147 were produced by nuclear fission and implanted at an energy of 60 keV. The decay chain of interest in this work is 147Nd→147Pm→147Sm (stable). Lattice location studies applying the emission channeling technique were carried out using the β− particles and conversion electrons emitted in the radioactive decay of 147Nd→147Pm. The samples were investigated as implanted, and also they were investigated after annealing to temperatures of 873 K as well as 1373 K. The main fraction of about 60% of both 147Pm as well as 147Nd atoms was located on substitutional Al sites in the AlN lattice; the remainder of the ions were located randomly within the AlN lattice. Following radioactive decay of 147Nd, the cathodoluminescence spectra of Pm3+ and Sm3+ were obtained between 500 nm and 1050 nm at sample temperatures between 12 K and 300 K. High-resolution emission spectra, representing intra-4f electron transitions, were analyzed to establish the crystal-field splitting of the energy levels of Sm3+ (4f5) and Pm3+ (4f4) in cationic sites having C3v symmetry in the AlN lattice. Using crystal-field splitting models, we obtained a rms deviation of 6 cm−1 between 31 calculated-to-experimental energy (Stark) levels for Sm3+ in AlN. The results are similar to those reported for Sm3+ implanted into GaN. Using a set of crystal-field splitting parameters Bnm, for Pm3+ derived from the present Sm3+ analysis, we calculated the splitting for the 5F1, 5I4, and 5I5 multiplet manifolds in Pm3+ and obtained good agreement between the calculated and the experimental Stark levels. Temperature-dependent lifetime measurements are also reported for the emitting levels 4F5∕2 (Sm3+) and 5F1 (Pm3+)