Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of North Texas, Dec., 2009. / Title from title page display. Includes bibliographical references.

Dissertation--Technische Universität Dresden, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references.

Dissertation, Universität München, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Industrial and Systems Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2006. / Hackman, Steve, Committee Chair ; Tovey, Craig, Committee Member ; Platzman, Loren, Committee Member ; Deng, Shijie, Committee Member ; Subramanian, Ajay, Committee Co-Chair.

Dissertation--Technische Universität Dresden, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (D.Biotech.) - University of Queensland, 2006. / Includes bibliography.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-08-29T11:13:28Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 tese_8048_DISSERTAÇÃO RICARDO PDF20150204-162139.pdf: 1127592 bytes, checksum: 7437860eba5aa55cef7c2231f2d83646 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-11-21 / O estudo tem por objetivo avaliar os fatores que possam explicar a captação de recursos (fundraising) dos fundos de Private Equity e Venture Capital (PE/VC). Em linhas gerais, a proposta é averiguar empiricamente quais são os fatores que impactam na captação de recursos pelos fundos de PE/VC. A amostra foi formada por 25 países e em um espaço temporal de 6 anos (2006-2011). Foram identificados seis fatores: atividade econômica, desenvolvimento do mercado de capitais, governança corporativa, desenvolvimento socioambiental, empreendedorismo e tributação. Assim, construiu-se através de Análise Fatorial seis fatores que foram compostos por 26 variáveis. Por meio de regressão múltipla foram investigadas as relações entre a captação de recursos por parte dos fundos PE/VC e os fatores gerados. Os resultados demonstraram que apesar dos fatores testados serem significativos, a captação dos recursos reage drasticamente ao quão desenvolvido é o mercado de capitais.

The main purpose of this thesis is to understand if Investors working in Private Equity and Venture Capital understand what corporate culture is and take it into account when deciding whether to invest or not in a startup or a target company. In order to reach this goal, an empirical research has been developed, interviewing a sample of private equity fund managers and professional business angels, selected randomly and without any personal connection to the author.

This thesis comprises three essays dealing with information and learning in business decision-making. The first essay presents a theory explaining the existence of dedicated financial intermediaries (i.e., venture capitalists) who serve the entrepreneurial sector. Building on the well-established idea that informational asymmetries are central in entrepreneurial financing, the main hypothesis is that venture capitalists exist precisely because they develop special expertise in reducing information-based market failures through careful selection, monitoring, and other means. The primary contribution of this chapter lies in linking the theoretical structure to detailed evidence on venture capital investment in Canada. Specifically, the theory suggests four empirical predictions. It is argued that the evidence is consistent with these predictions and therefore with the central hypothesis. In the second essay, two agents, an entrepreneur and a venture capitalist, engage in repeated, ultimatum-style bargaining about a two-dimensional financial contract. They base their offers on simple heuristics, which are processed by a genetic algorithm. The algorithm captures some fundamental principles of human learning. A simulation experiment reveals that with incomplete information, disagreement and delays in bargaining are observed more frequently than under complete information. This can be explained by the sensitivity of agents' learning to information. It is also found that the agent in the weak bargaining position might benefit from incomplete information. The third essay explores a range of hypotheses that might explain differential intra-industry firm performance. A behavioral model is developed in which simple rules guide firms on whether to adapt internally and/or imitate others in order to effect organizational change. This dynamic, multi-period model, in which firms simultaneously compete, is simulated under assumptions which correspond to the hypotheses about differential firm performance. Results reveal that stochastic managerial choice and organizational inertia are plausible sources of differential firm performance. Experiential learning, in and of itself, has only limited influence on heterogeneous firm performance. Interestingly, imitation may be an undesirable strategy for underperforming firms either because it is aimed at a "moving target" or because the targeted market niche is already crowded. / Business, Sauder School of / Graduate

The objective of this research is to investigate the role of geography in the venture capital investment in the US biotechnology industry. Data include 4,409 quarterly investment deals from the MoneyTree Survey during 1995 and 2008. Strong spatial concentration patterns are identified. Using both ordinary squares regressions and geographically weighted regressions, we find that as the geographic distance between biotechnology firms and their investors decreases, deal size increases. Location in established biotechnology clusters, such as New England and California, helps to bring a larger deal into individual firms as well. Also, the impact of distance decay in these two clusters is more significant than that in other regions. In addition, we find that a global venture capital investing syndication network brings large deals. Furthermore, firms in later stages of development, and/or with few financing rounds, tend to receive more capital per deal.