Venture Governance

Philipp D. Riekert develops a theory of comparative corporate governance of venture capital-backed startup companies (Venture Governance). The study empirically identifies stylized governance systems of startup companies in Silicon Valley and Tokyo that are distinct from traditional archetypes of business venturing. The Venture Governance framework focuses on the complementarities between financing, human resource, and market strategies of the startup company, and takes a functional view towards entrepreneurship as bringing about innovation by combining the functions of initiation, uncertainty-bearing, and coordination. The author shows the conceptual differences between Venture Governance in Silicon Valley and Tokyo and explains how Silicon Valley Venture Governance contributes to economic growth by expanding the set of business concepts that become initiated by professionalizing the process of commercialization.