| We have witnessed an increased attention to initial public offerings (IPOs) in recent years by both scholars (Welbourne et al. 1996; Deeds et al. 1997; Kim & Ritter, 1999; Certo, Covin, Daily & Dalton, 2001) and practitioners. Much of the attention has been brought to IPOs because of the substantial amount of money being raised by firms in IPOs. It is clear that IPOs often raise large amounts of proceeds, and result in even larger valuations, particularly in the past few years. The question yet to be answered, however, is what potential factors influence the value a firm has at IPO. Recent findings have cast doubt on the longheld assumption that a firm's financial performance prior to IPO was the primary driver of the firm's IPO value. This study seeks to bring the management and entrepreneurship literature to the discussion in attempts to improve our collective understanding of the IPO valuation phenomenon. This dissertation hopes to make a significant contribution to the entrepreneurship literature in three areas: (1) the relationship between legitimacy and IPO value; (2) identifying and operationalizing between three types of legitimacy which impact IPO value across industries; and (3) identifying the moderating impact of industry life cycle on the relationship between TMT legitimacy and IPO value. |
