Riskkapitalbolags påverkan på styrning i sina portföljbolag
En studie om utveckling av styrsystem i svenska Venture Capital finansierade företag.
The aim of this study is to investigate which management control mechanisms evolve in companies that receive funding from Venture Capital companies and why the management control systems evolve in the way that they do. A case study was performed on three Swedish high technology companies, that all received funding from Venture Capital companies for the first time in 2006. Merchant?s framework, defining all management control mechanisms as either, results control, action control or personnel control, was used to structure the study. Results show that the companies that received Venture Capital all increased the use of management control mechanisms within results control, action control and personnel control. All of the studied companies experienced an increase in formalized reporting systems to the board, all had contracts tying the founders to the companies and instruction manuals to the CEO and all of the studied companies increased the sizes of the board and had Venture Capital representatives on the board. However, differences were noted in how the management control systems in general had been affected by Venture Capital funding in the studied companies. Explanations to why the management control systems evolved in the observed way can mainly be explained by the following reasons; the Venture Capital companies view on which strategies were going to lead to an increase in the valuation of the companies, the definition of what the main value drivers in the companies were, the stage that the companies were in, the founders? backgrounds and core competences, the business models of the Venture Capital companies and the background of their investment representatives.