Agency theory and resource based view: an application on the relationship between ownership structure and performance in high- tech start-ups
 


In this paper we use the lens provided by the resourceand competence-based perspective and agency theory to analyse benefits and costs arising from separation between ownership and control in hightech start-ups. We argue that when these firms obtain external financing, the associated separation between ownership and control generates agency costs. Whether these costs exceed the benefits of external financing, depends on the amount and quality of the resources (financial and non financial) and competences provided to the focal start-ups by external investors. In particular, we distinguish two types of external investors: outsiders (i.e. individual investors with no direct role in firms’ management) and institutional venture capital investors. Moreover, we verify that the negative effect of agency costs disappears when we consider financing from insiders (i.e. individual investors with direct role in firms’ management). We conduct a cross-section analysis on a sample of 202 Italian NTBFs. To measure firm performance we resort to relative total factor productivity measured by two different methods: Blundell-Bond estimator and Olley-Pakes estimator. We resort to a IV approach in order to solve endogeneity problems.