Venture capitalist monitoring: Evidence from governance structures

We examine the impact of venture capitalist (VC) involvement, quality and exit on corporate governance structures at the time of and subsequent to an initial public offering (IPO). Venture capital backed firms utilize governance structures with greater levels of monitoring at the time of an IPO compared to non-backed firms, but this difference begins to dissipate over time. While short-lived, IPOs backed by high quality VCs have greater overall monitoring levels than those IPOs backed by low quality VCs. IPOs backed by high quality VCs use significantly more equity-based compensation than their low quality counterparts. Finally, the exit of a VC materially alters the governance structure of firms. Measures of governance decline following the departure of a venture capital firm. Overall, the presence of a venture capitalist affects governance structures of firms both at the IPO and through the early years as public firms.     

Opportunities for Air Pollutant and Greenhouse Gas Emission Reduction through Local Transport Planning

This paper has three main objectives: firstly, to provide quantitative information on the potential greenhouse gas and air pollutant emissions reductions resulting from a number of future road transport scenarios; secondly, to illustrate the emission reduction measures available to local transport planners; and thirdly, to highlight the potential for these measures to be integrated into strategies that deliver other transport priorities. The results are drawn from a case study of Norfolk in the UK. We conclude that while technology can play a large part in reducing emissions of air pollutants, demand management is crucial to the delivery of long term greenhouse gas emission reduction and ultimately of air pollutant emissions too.     

Wrongful firing in violation of public policy: Who gets fired and why

We extend the whistle-blowing literature to the context of wrongful firings that violate a public policy. Our results suggest that the incidence of wrongful firings varies, depending on the employee’s gender and tenure, and the industry in which the organization operates. Wrongful firings do not occur more frequently in certain occupations, since firms wrongfully discharge professional and managerial employees as often as employees in technical, clerical, and laborer occupations. We also show that gender, tenure, occupation, and industry, in combination, can distinguish between three types of wrongful firings in violation of public policy. Our results support the application of theory and empirical research on whistle-blowing to the wrongful firing context, aiding researchers interested in developing explanations of wrongful firings in violation of public policy. For managers, our study points to the need to develop more effective responses to employees exercising legal rights, refusing to participate in illegal or unethical activities, and performing a public duty or obligation, such as whistle-blowing.     

Opportunistic customer complaining: Causes, consequences, and managerial alternatives

Should a hospitality firm yield to a customer complaint that is suspected [or even known] to be opportunistic? While the answer to this question varies based upon numerous factors, this conceptual article synthesizes multiple streams of empirical research to enumerate: (1) customer-centric, firm-centric [such as the influence of firm size], and relationship-centric determinants of opportunistic customer complaining; (2) means of detecting whether a complaint is opportunistic [such as through employee knowledge of operations]; and (3) potential consequences to the firm of yielding and not yielding to opportunistic complaints.     

Impact of founder experience on exit intentions

Entrepreneurial exit—the process by which the founders of privately held firms leave the firm they helped to create (DeTienne, J Bus Venturing, 2010)—is an important component of the entrepreneurial process, yet researchers know very little about it. We examine entrepreneurs’ intentions to exit by a range of possible exit paths [acquisition, initial public offering (IPO), family succession, employee buyout, independent sale, liquidation], building on Gimeno et al.’s (Adm Sci Q 42:750–783, 1997) notion of thresholds as they apply to a simple survival/exit dichotomy, and expanding this to include different intended paths of exit. Our results indicate that entrepreneurs intend to pursue different exit paths based on previous entrepreneurial experience, industry experience, age, and education level. Our findings provide preliminary evidence that differences between intended exit and failure are underspecified in the literature, since exit consists of many unique paths. Also, in support of threshold theory, we find that the intended exit path is driven by factors other than firm performance.