A contingency theory of entrepreneurial debt governance

Jonathan O'Brien and Amir Sasson

Journal of Business Research, 2017, vol. 81, issue C, 118-129

Abstract: Access to debt can be crucial for entrepreneurs who need capital. Embedding economic ties within a social relationship with the debt provider can ensure capital availability and attenuate opportunism. However, such a relationship requires substantial investments in time and effort. We advance a solution to this entrepreneurial conundrum by proposing a contingency theory which prescribes aligning the fundamental transactional properties (i.e., asset specificity, uncertainty and frequency) with the nature of the entrepreneur-bank relationship (i.e., embedded versus arm's length). Our theory predicts that transactional properties affect the optimal governance of the entrepreneur-bank relationship, and that social embeddedness can transform what looks like a market transaction (e.g., a debt transaction) into a hybrid form of governance more akin to a hierarchy. Using a sample of small businesses in the U.S., we find that congruence between the optimal governance structure and the actual governance structure results in higher firm performance.

Keywords: Bank loans; Performance; Transaction costs; Embeddedness (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148296317302722
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
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:eee:jbrese:v:81:y:2017:i:c:p:118-129

DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2017.08.011

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Business Research is currently edited by A. G. Woodside

More articles in Journal of Business Research from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().