| Past research studied VCs in their roles as financiers of young companies, syndicate builders, and deal investigators and negotiators. However, given their focus on “VC as financier,” these past studies have treated VC firms as black boxes, neglecting to explore systematically the internal organizational characteristics that might have important implications for VCs' external roles as financiers. In contrast, I view VCs as “entrepreneurs” who have to make decisions about how to found their own firm, decide on its strategy, hire VCs to work with them inside the firm, structure its activities, and raise capital from their own investors. The first half of my dissertation, which is based on field work with 40 VCs, is a “rich description” of the strategies, resources, structures, and processes within VC firms, as a first step toward understanding how those characteristics affect VCs' roles as financiers.; From a theoretical perspective, Simon (1962), Jacques (1976), and Hart and Moore (1999), among others, have explored why “pyramidal” organizations are “universal.” However, without being able to test these explanations on counter-pyramidal firms, we cannot assess which factors really drive pyramidal structures. In the second half of my dissertation, I examine a class of firms, early-stage VCs, that have historically structured themselves as “upside-down pyramids.” Given the rise of knowledge intensive firms (KIFs) in the economy (Starbuck 1992; Drucker 1993), it is increasingly important that we understand the factors that drive the structures of these firms, especially when they diverge from past research on pyramidal structures.; I use a panel dataset (317 VC firms from 1997–2000) and my field-based research to explore why VC firms have been structured this way. In particular, I focus on the linkage between firm strategy and internal VC structures. I also examine VC firms currently in the process of transitioning toward pyramidal structures, describing why they are trying to transition and the barriers they face in doing so. To complement these papers, I develop an emergent “crucial experiment” (Stinchcombe 1968) case that describes the efforts of an early-stage firm to aggressively adopt a pyramidal structure and processes. I end by exploring the implications of my findings for research on KIFs, and for the future evolution of the VC industry. |
