From Governing to Managing: Exploring Modes of Control in Private Equity Relationships

Despite the economic significance of private equity (PE) firms, there has been limited investigation into the control mechanisms they implement to manage relationships with their portfolio companies. Through a comparative field study, we describe the role and characteristics of controls implemented by PE firms and the contextual factors associated with the relative importance of different control mechanisms. Evidence shows that control mechanisms play an important role in directing the actions of portfolio companies and that there is significant variation between PE firms in terms of the combination of formal contracting, results, behavior, and social controls that are relied upon. We find that the primary factors associated with the choice of control combination are the equity arrangement and the perceived cognitive style of top management in the portfolio company. From our analysis, we derive a framework of four control combinations that are aligned to variations in these two factors. Our analysis also points to the potential interdependencies that arise between control mechanisms within each control combination.