What are Firms? Evolution from Birth to Public Companies

Steven Kaplan (), Strömberg, Per and Berk Sensoy
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Per Stromberg

No 5224, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers

Abstract: We study how firm characteristics evolve from early business plan, to initial public offering, to public company for 49 venture capital financed companies. The average time elapsed is almost six years. We describe the financial performance, business idea, point(s) of differentiation, non-human capital assets, growth strategy, customers, competitors, alliances, top management, ownership structure, and the board of directors. Our analysis focuses on the nature and stability of those firm attributes. Firm business lines remain remarkably stable from business plan through public company. Within those business lines, non-human capital aspects of the businesses appear more stable than human capital aspects. In the cross-section, firms with more alienable assets have substantially more human capital turnover.

Keywords: entrepreneurship; Theory of the firm; Venture capital (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D21 D23 G24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2005-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-bec, nep-ent, nep-fin and nep-tid
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://cepr.org/publications/DP5224 (application/pdf)
CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org

Related works:
Working Paper: What are Firms? Evolution from Birth to Public Companies (2005)
Working Paper: What Are Firms? Evolution from Birth to Public Companies (2005)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:5224

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
https://cepr.org/publications/DP5224

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers Centre for Economic Policy Research, 33 Great Sutton Street, London EC1V 0DX.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().