IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/veecee/v1y1999i4p285-302.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The application of principal-agent methods to investor-investee relations in the UK venture capital industry

Author

Listed:
  • Gavin C. Reid

Abstract

This paper appeals to UK evidence on venture capital. The investor is regarded as the principal, and the investee as the agent. Relations between the two are analysed in terms of risk management, information handling, and the trading of risk and information. In the data analysed, investors and investees are paired in 'dyads'. The evidence on their behaviour and interaction was obtained by face-to-face interviews. A principal-agent model is developed to deal with incentives for entrepreneurial effort. From this, issues of information and monitoring naturally arise. Then the seeking of contract optimality in real contexts is examined, applying this framework to qualitative data. It is argued that evidence viewed in this way supports the application of principal-agent modelling to the financing of mature small firms by venture capitalists. The feature of contract optimality that was perceived to be most important was capital structure. There were several reasons for this: establishing ownership entitlement; creating incentives for effort; and apportioning risk efficiently. Often the observed relations between investor and investee were perceived to be at or close to optimality. It was found that these optima were specific to time and place, and strongly reflected the house-styles of individual investors and their reputations.

Suggested Citation

  • Gavin C. Reid, 1999. "The application of principal-agent methods to investor-investee relations in the UK venture capital industry," Venture Capital, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 1(4), pages 285-302, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:veecee:v:1:y:1999:i:4:p:285-302
    DOI: 10.1080/136910699295820
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/136910699295820
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/136910699295820?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Balboa, Marina & Marti, Jose, 2007. "Factors that determine the reputation of private equity managers in developing markets," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 22(4), pages 453-480, July.
    2. Mantell, Edmund H., 2005. "An ergodic theory of venture capital solicitation," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 14(2), pages 149-168.
    3. Jesper Lindgaard Christensen, 2008. "The IPR System, Venture Capital and Capital Markets – Contributions and Distortions of Small Firm Innovation?," DRUID Working Papers 08-03, DRUID, Copenhagen Business School, Department of Industrial Economics and Strategy/Aalborg University, Department of Business Studies.
    4. Hanna Silvola, 2008. "Design of MACS in growth and revival stages of the organizational life‐cycle," Qualitative Research in Accounting & Management, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 5(1), pages 27-47, March.
    5. Patrícia Becsky-Nagy, 2016. "The Special Aspects of Venture Capital’s Value Creating Mechanisms in Hungary," Journal of Entrepreneurship, Management and Innovation, Fundacja Upowszechniająca Wiedzę i Naukę "Cognitione", vol. 12(3), pages 31-55.
    6. Wolf, Björn, 2006. "Empirische Untersuchung zu den Einflussfaktoren der Finanzierungsprobleme junger Unternehmen in Deutschland und deren Auswirkungen auf die Wirtschaftspolitik," Working Papers "Firms and Region" U1/2006, Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research (ISI).
    7. Johansson Jeaneth M. & Malmstrom Malin, 2013. "The Business Model Transparency Paradox in Innovative Growth Ventures: Trade-offs between Competitive Advantages and Agency Costs," Entrepreneurship Research Journal, De Gruyter, vol. 3(2), pages 238-263, January.
    8. Edmund H. Mantell, 2008. "A Probabilistic Theory Of Entrepreneurial Financing," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 9(1), pages 177-197, May.
    9. Gavin C. Reid & Julia A. Smith, 2003. "Venture Capital and Risk in High-Technology Enterprises," International Journal of Business and Economics, School of Management Development, Feng Chia University, Taichung, Taiwan, vol. 2(3), pages 227-244, December.
    10. José Martí Pellón & Marina Balboa, 2003. "Characterisation Of The Reputation Of Private Equity Managers: Evidence In Spain," Working Papers. Serie EC 2003-16, Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Económicas, S.A. (Ivie).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:veecee:v:1:y:1999:i:4:p:285-302. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/TVEC20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.