Venture capital plays an important role in the entrepreneurial process of providing financing and management support to young, rapidly growing companies. While venture capital investment success stories such as those of Microsoft, Apple and Google are well known, such "home runs" are rather rare. Many investments provide little or no return so that accurately evaluating the prospects of portfolio companies and terminating further engagement in unsuccessful ventures in time is key to the overall portfolio performance of venture capital firms. When venture capitalists act rationally it should be expected that investment terminations are neither systematically premature nor systematically delayed. However, recent studies have discovered a systematic tendency toward delayed project terminations of unsuccessful investments that cannot be reconciled with a model of rational decision making. The present study examines such delayed project terminations in the venture capital industry and investigates whether escalation of commitment may provide an appropriate perspective on the phenomenon and contribute to its explanation. The study develops a comprehensive theoretical framework that synthesizes and integrates several economically irrational drivers of project escalation. A large scale survey among European venture capitalists provides the basis for the empirical analysis of the hypothesized relationships. The analysis yields valuable new insights into the interaction of different escalation drivers, which are much more intertwined than previously supposed by the literature, and permits to suggest effective escalation countermeasures for practice. The considerations and findings of the study are generalizable beyond the venture capital context to a wide variety of settings in which organizations routinely make sequential investment decisions.

This book has an objective and a focus. It provides the reader with: • an in-depth acquaintance with the theory of the firm developed by Erich Gutenberg • an insight into a coherent body of current German research in the theory of the firm. The book is divided into two parts. The first part lays the foundations. It presents Gutenberg's theory of the firm to the English speaking reader. Considering the great importance that Erich Gutenberg has had in Germany and taking into consideration the impact that the translations of his path-breaking three volumes "Principles of Management" have had in France, the Spanish speaking countries, and in Japan, it was felt that it was necessary, on the occasion of his tOOth anniversary, to present a concise summary of his contributions to the theory of the firm to an English speaking scientific community. Six papers present Gutenberg's theory in the light of the theoretical advances that he stimulated as well as in the framework of other theoretical developments like capital market theory, transaction cost theory, principal agent theory, and contract theory. The papers show that Gutenberg's theory is highly relevant for theory and highly influential in the practice of management.

In the current times of more frequent crises and ever shortening innovation cycles, the management of change has become a crucial task of survival. While it is not a new topic in business research, the developments of the last decade have posed many new challenges for the change management of firms and organizations and have thus also raised many new questions for academic research in business administration, which the present book turns to deepen. Its particular focus is on disruptive change including its driving forces as well as effective and sustainable management. This publication constitutes a collection of articles that discuss change and innovation processes across different sectors of the economy (industry, banking, and retail), the role of leadership and corporate governance for the effectiveness and sustainability of organizational change.

This book discusses current health care challenges and new strategies for innovative solutions in this area from an interdisciplinary perspective of health care management, business economics, and medicine. It presents the idea of a “boundaryless hospital”, a conceptual model of a patient-centric, value-based health network that overcomes typical sectorial, organizational, and geographical boundaries and offers greater efficiency and better quality outcomes for patients. Effective health care for a growing and aging population is a major challenge for economies all over the world. New breakthroughs in medical technology and pharmaceuticals as well as digitization provide scope for more efficiency and for a better quality of health care. Novel organization forms and management concepts are key for coping with the increasing cost pressure observed in most health care systems. The contributions in this volume present innovative strategies for developing and implementing the concept of a boundaryless hospital. They highlight experiences from various countries and with different treatments. The book project was initiated and carried out by the Center for Advanced Studies in Management (CASiM), the interdisciplinary research center of HHL Leipzig Graduate School of Management for business administration in the 21st century.