Background: The importance of creativity and innovation is frequently stressed in modern literature on management. The significance of innovation gives entrepreneurs the reason to prior to the commencement of a relationship with a venture capitalist, obtain necessary insights regarding the influences such a relationship may have, in terms of innovation. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to scrutinise the influence of venture capital firms on their portfolio companies regarding their ability to be innovative. Delimitations: The intent is to study the impact of a venture capitalist from the viewpoint of its portfolio companies. In other words, what the portfolio companies have perceived as changes is our main area of concern, rather than what the venture capitalist has perceived as change. Realisation: LinkTech, a venture capitalist located and active in the town of Linköping, has together with three of its portfolio companies constituted as an example for the empirical research. An interview with the CEO at LinkTech was carried out as well as interviews with managers at the three portfolio companies. Additionally, a survey aimed towards the employees atthe portfolio companies was conducted. Results: It has been found that a venture capitalist does influence its portfolio companies in terms of innovation. This is mainly done through changes in the existing strategy, but also through the building of networks, changes in the organisational structure of the firms, and through the establishment of reward systems. Empowerment, corporate culture, decision- making, and teamwork have also been examined but been shown to be less influenced.

Purpose - This paper aims to analyze different groups, such as venture capitalists’, banks’, governmental support agencies’ and incubator managers’ attitudes toward business plans. Approach – The interviews have been conducted within the following institutions: Jönköping Business Development (JBD, Handelsbanken and Swedbank, Jönköping, ALMI and NyföretagarCentrum (Government Support Agencies (GSAs) and Business Incubator Science Park Jönköping (BISPJ). The author has chosen to conduct the study within this the previous mentioned institutions because those are the ones who mostly demand a formal written BP from firms or potential businesses. Findings – it was found that all the institutions interviewed thinks that a formal written business plan is very important for the entrepreneurs to clarify goals and raise funds. They don’t see any direct negative sides with a business plan.  It was also found that the majority were of the opinion that a business plan does not need to be long. The funding decision is mostly based on the personal characteristics of the entrepreneur; it can be very hard for start-ups manager to convince the funds providers that they are the right people. The type of resources provided to the venture determines the need of follow-ups. It is done mainly based on the financial aspects while those who provide advice or assistance tend to not engage in follow-ups. Limitations - the study was conducted in the period when the many of the potential people to be interviewed were on holiday. The language was sometimes a limitation since English is not the first language neither for the interviewer nor the interviewees.

<p><strong>Purpose</strong> - This paper aims to analyze different groups, such as venture capitalists’, banks’, governmental support agencies’ and incubator managers’ attitudes toward business plans.</p><p><strong>Approach</strong> – The interviews have been conducted within the following institutions: Jönköping Business Development (JBD, Handelsbanken and Swedbank, Jönköping, ALMI and NyföretagarCentrum (Government Support Agencies (GSAs) and Business Incubator Science Park Jönköping (BISPJ). The author has chosen to conduct the study within this the previous mentioned institutions because those are the ones who mostly demand a formal written BP from firms or potential businesses.</p><p><strong>Findings</strong> – it was found that all the institutions interviewed thinks that a formal written business plan is very important for the entrepreneurs to clarify goals and raise funds. They don’t see any direct negative sides with a business plan.  It was also found that the majority were of the opinion that a business plan does not need to be long. The funding decision is mostly based on the personal characteristics of the entrepreneur; it can be very hard for start-ups manager to convince the funds providers that they are the right people. The type of resources provided to the venture determines the need of follow-ups. It is done mainly based on the financial aspects while those who provide advice or assistance tend to not engage in follow-ups.</p><p><strong>Limitations </strong>- the study was conducted in the period when the many of the potential people to be interviewed were on holiday. The language was sometimes a limitation since English is not the first language neither for the interviewer nor the interviewees.</p>

<p>Background: The importance of creativity and innovation is frequently stressed in modern literature on management. The significance of innovation gives entrepreneurs the reason to prior to the commencement of a relationship with a venture capitalist, obtain necessary insights regarding the influences such a relationship may have, in terms of innovation. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to scrutinise the influence of venture capital firms on their portfolio companies regarding their ability to be innovative. Delimitations: The intent is to study the impact of a venture capitalist from the viewpoint of its portfolio companies. In other words, what the portfolio companies have perceived as changes is our main area of concern, rather than what the venture capitalist has perceived as change. Realisation: LinkTech, a venture capitalist located and active in the town of Linköping, has together with three of its portfolio companies constituted as an example for the empirical research. An interview with the CEO at LinkTech was carried out as well as interviews with managers at the three portfolio companies. Additionally, a survey aimed towards the employees atthe portfolio companies was conducted. Results: It has been found that a venture capitalist does influence its portfolio companies in terms of innovation. This is mainly done through changes in the existing strategy, but also through the building of networks, changes in the organisational structure of the firms, and through the establishment of reward systems. Empowerment, corporate culture, decision- making, and teamwork have also been examined but been shown to be less influenced.</p>

It is generally well understood that venture capital (VC) is an important and significant source of financing for small firms. Questions revolving around the increased likelihood of a firm backed by Venture Capitalists (VCs) to be export oriented have yet to be fully explored. Responding to this research gap, a sample of Canadian VC backed firms is used to compare the performance of Canadian VC firms in terms of facilitating internationalization among their portfolio companies. The particular reference of this study is Export Development Canada (EDC), a crown corporation mandated to promote export among Canadian firms. This research finds that EDC as a VC investor and export-oriented consultant has no association with the increased probability of exporting. Also, stage of the investment does not show any relationship with internationalization. These results run contrary to previous speculation that syndication of VCs increases the probability of internationalization among portfolio firms.

Although just a minority of all small firms in the UK, high-growth entrepreneurial ventures are becoming widely recognised for their role in job growth and economic prosperity. However, due to their inherently high-risk nature, many of these early-stage firms experience difficulty in securing outside finance from institutional investors, which ultimately limits their growth and economic potential. Fortunately, two investor types, business angels (BAs) and venture capitalists (VCs), do fund a small proportion of these entrepreneurial ventures, although they, especially BAs, often have much more financial capital available for such investments. Since many aspects of BA and VC investment processes remain unknown, it is hoped that a better understanding of how and why these investors fund particular investments may aid in further lessening the entrepreneurial funding problem. This research study, therefore, conducts the first-ever detailed comparison of the investment criteria and procedures of these two financiers across the full investment process. To make the study more robust, a theoretical base is adopted (based on agency theory) to form research hypotheses which propose that BAs and VCs in the UK may use different approaches to limit potential agency risks in their investments (i.e. the risks associated with an entrepreneur's potential misuse of the investor's money). Utilising data from 40 personal interviews and 262 questionnaire responses, this study empirically supports the main hypothesised notion that, although both investors reduce agency risks at all stages of the investment process, BAs place more emphasis on doing so ex-post investment (the incomplete contracts approach), whilst VCs stress doing so more ex-ante investment (the principal-agent approach). In supporting the hypothese, empirical information is gathered about each investment stage and each investor group's heterogeneity. Possible implications of these findings are then discussed in the hope of aiding, no matter how slightly, the funding efficiency of small entrepreneurial firms.

This thesis models the Australian-US Dollar (AUD/USD) exchange rate with particular attention being paid to investor risk aversion. Accounting for investor risk aversion in AUD/USD exchange rate modelling is novel, so too is the method used to measure risk aversion in this thesis. Investor risk aversion is measured using a technique developed in Bliss and Panigirtzoglou (2004), which makes use of Probability Density Functions (PDFs) extracted from option markets. More conventional approaches use forward-market pricing or Uncovered Interest Parity. Several methods of estimating PDFs from option and spot markets are examined, with the estimations from currency spot-markets representing an original application of an arbitrage technique developed in Stutzer (1996) to the AUD/USD exchange rate. The option and spot-market PDFs are compared using their first four moments and if estimated judiciously, the spot-market PDFs are found to have similar shapes to the option-market PDFs. So in the absence of an AUD/USD exchange rate options market, spot-market PDFs can act as a reasonable substitute for option-market PDFs for the purpose of examining market sentiment. The Relative Risk Aversion (RRA) attached to the AUD/USD, the US Dollar-Japanese Yen, the US Dollar-Swiss Franc and the US-Canadian Dollar exchange rates is measured using the Bliss and Panigirtzoglou (2004) technique. Amongst these exchange rates, only the AUD/USD exchange rate demonstrates a significant level of investor RRA and only over a weekly forecast horizon. The Bliss and Panigirtzoglou (2004) technique is also used to approximate a time-varying risk premium for the AUD/USD exchange rate. This risk premium is added to the cointegrating vectors of fixed-price and asset monetary models of the AUD/USD exchange rate. An index of Australia???s export commodity prices is also added. The out-of-sample forecasting ability of these cointegrating vectors is tested relative to a random walk using an error-correction framework. While adding the time-varying risk premium improves this forecasting ability, adding export commodity prices does so by more. Further, including both the time-varying risk premium and export commodity prices in the cointegrating vectors reduces their forecasting ability. So the time-varying risk premium is important for AUD/USD exchange rate modelling, but not as important as export commodity prices.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Tufts University, 2004. / Adviser: Joseph Litvak. Submitted to the Dept. of English. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 295-301). Access restricted to members of the Tufts University community. Also available via the World Wide Web;

Techn. Univ., Diss/2004--Darmstadt, 2003.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Wollongong, 2007. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references: leaf 168-189.