L. Toschi

Università di Bologna, Management, Faculty Member

Followers

Following

Co-authors

Public Views

Interests

Uploads

Papers by L. Toschi

Corporate Venture Capital: How established firms use external resources to create new competencies

This Doctoral Dissertation is triggered by an emergent trend: firms are increasingly referring to... more This Doctoral Dissertation is triggered by an emergent trend: firms are increasingly referring to investments in corporate venture capital (CVC) as means to create new competencies and foster the search for competitive advantage through the use of external resources. CVC is generally defined as the practice by non-financial firms of placing equity investments in entrepreneurial companies. Thus, CVC can be interpreted (i) as a key component of corporate entrepreneurship - acts of organizational creation, renewal, or innovation that occur within or outside an existing organization– and (ii) as a particular form of venture capital (VC) investment where the investor is not a traditional and financial institution, but an established corporation. My Dissertation, thus, simultaneously refers to two streams of research: corporate strategy and venture capital. In particular, I directed my attention to three topics of particular relevance for better understanding the role of CVC. In the first...

Download

L'impatto dei programmi pubblici a supporto del venture capital: il caso del Regno Unito

ECONOMIA E POLITICA INDUSTRIALE, 2011

The paper assesses the impact of the publicly-backed funds created to enable new and high-tech co... more The paper assesses the impact of the publicly-backed funds created to enable new and high-tech companies to obtain VC (venture capital) to meet their funding requirements. It describes the main approaches used to perform an evaluation of this type and an application related to the experience of the United Kingdom. The analyses are based on a sample of six hundred

A Review of 30 Years of Literature on Entrepreneurial Teams: An Input-Process-Outcome Framework

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2018

Entrepreneurship research emphasizes the importance of the individual entrepreneur in both ventur... more Entrepreneurship research emphasizes the importance of the individual entrepreneur in both venture creation and growth. However, theory and practice suggest that the vast majority of new ventures are now team-based, and teams play a key role in venture success. As the scholarly interest in this topic has substantially grown in the recent years, the literature has flourished in a rather fragmented way. In this paper, we take a holistic view and systematise more than 250 papers on entrepreneurial teams, published over 30 years. We use a process approach (i.e., Input-Process-Outcome), depicting team evolution phases, from inception to maturity, linking them to firm performance. We identify gaps, highlighting opportunities for future research.

From The Lab To The Stock Market? An Analysis Of University-Oriented Seed Funds In Europe

Academy of Management Proceedings, 2014

This work investigates the role of university and PRO-oriented seed funds (i.e. USFs), namely VC ... more

Academic Logic and Corporate Entrepreneurial Intentions: A Study of the Interaction between Cognitive and Institutional Factors in New Firms

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2015

By focusing on the context in which new firms are established, this article studies the extent to... more By focusing on the context in which new firms are established, this article studies the extent to which corporate entrepreneurial intentions are enacted differently by academic and nonacademic entrepreneurs. Using constructs from cognitive research and exploiting the theory of institutional logics, we observe that academic entrepreneurs, notwithstanding their engagement in entrepreneurship, still implement their corporate entrepreneurial intentions acting in accordance with the academic institutional environment they belong to. Using a matched-pairs research design, our results show that academic entrepreneurs (compared to non-academic ones) leverage their awareness of technical competencies significantly more, and their entrepreneurial self-efficacy and awareness of managerial skills considerably less. We discuss the theoretical and managerial implications related to how cognitive and institutional factors interact to foster entrepreneurial value in newly established firms.

Assessing the Impact of Public Venture Capital Programs in the United Kingdom: Do Regional Characteristics Matter?

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2010

Over the last two decades, many governments around the world have implemented programmes to mobil... more Over the last two decades, many governments around the world have implemented programmes to mobilize venture capital (VC) in support of new and innovative firms. In this paper, we analyze whether and how the impact of publicly-supported VC funds varies between high-tech and low-tech regions, when compared to private VC funds. Our analyses on a sample of 898 VC-backed companies in the United Kingdom in the period 1998-2007 show for public VC funds: (a) a greater propensity to invest in early-stage and technology-based sectors, which is especially pronounced in low-tech regions; (b) a greater propensity toward staging and a greater ability to attract partners in syndication, especially in high-tech regions; (c) lower exit rates of investee companies, in terms of IPO/acquisition, as compared to private VC funds. Overall, our findings confirm that regional characteristics do matter if we want to more rigorously assess the effectiveness of public VC programmes.

Download

Do patents affect VC financing? Empirical evidence from the nanotechnology sector

International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, 2014

ABSTRACT This paper analyzes the importance given by Venture Capital firms (VCs) to the patent po... more ABSTRACT This paper analyzes the importance given by Venture Capital firms (VCs) to the patent portfolios of start-up companies in their financing decisions. In particular, the contributions presented are twofold. First, we determine whether the amount of VC financing is associated with three elements related to technological portfolios: number of patent, patent scope and number of “core technology” patents (i.e., those patents related to core technological capabilities of the company). Second, we examine whether the relevance of patents for the financing decisions varies across different types of VC firms, depending on their industry specialization and affiliation. We provide empirical evidence from a sample of 332 VC-backed companies in the nanotechnology sector for the period 1985–2006. Our results confirm the importance of core technology patents in the VC investment decisions, especially for specialized VCs, when compared with generalist VCs. However, no differences are found between corporate and independent VCs.

Mix and Match: Corporate Diversification and CVC Portfolio Strategies

The literature on venture capital (VC) has investigated the determinants of portfolio composition... more The literature on venture capital (VC) has investigated the determinants of portfolio composition and the effects it has on both the investors? and the investee companies? performance. However, with Corporate Venture Capital (CVC), one might expect the relationship to be different as investments in entrepreneurial ventures are strategic means for corporations to learn about new markets and/or technologies. In this paper we analyze the strategic use of CVC by exploring the relationship between the corporate strategy of the parent firm and her CVC portfolio strategies. The analysis uses data on a sample of 234 US public corporate investors in the period 1996?2006 and shows how the level of corporate diversification of the parent firm influences the scope of her CVC funds, and how this differs depending on whether one considers corporate diversification and portfolio scope from a market or a technology perspective. Jelcodes:L21,O32

Download

Bridging the University Funding Gap: Determinants and Consequences of University Seed Funds and Proof-of-Concept Programs in Europe

The limited availability of private funding sources to support technology transfer activities rep... more The limited availability of private funding sources to support technology transfer activities represents a major barrier to the effective commercialization of university technologies. This working paper analyzes the key determinants of use of financial instruments by universities - such as seed funds and proof-of-concept programs - to address such funding gaps. Using data from a survey of technology transfer office managers in European universities, the authors detail the antecedents of the presence of such instruments at the university level and their perceived effectiveness. The findings in turn have notable policy implications.

Download

IP-backed finance

Download

Running ahead in the nanotechnology gold rush. Strategic patenting in emerging technologies

This article appeared in a journal published by Elsevier. The attached copy is furnished to the a... more This article appeared in a journal published by Elsevier. The attached copy is furnished to the author for internal non-commercial research and education use, including for instruction at the authors institution and sharing with colleagues. Other uses, including reproduction and distribution, or selling or licensing copies, or posting to personal, institutional or third party websites are prohibited. In most cases authors are permitted to post their version of the article (e.g. in Word or Tex form) to their personal website or institutional repository. Authors requiring further information regarding Elsevier's archiving and manuscript policies are encouraged to visit: http://www.elsevier.com/authorsrights This paper provides theoretical and empirical contributions on how patent scope varies over time and by type of applicants in the initial phases of an emerging technology. We refer to the literature on technology life-cycles and on appropriability regimes in order to study the evolution of patent scope – as measured by the number of claims – in the specific case of nanotechnology. Our regression analyses, based on a sample of 58,244 nanotech US patents, show that – once time, sector and firm effects are controlled for – patent scope decreases over the subsequent phases of the technology life-cycle. Moreover, we find that university nanotech patents tend to be characterized by a broader scope than other patents. We conclude by discussing the managerial and policy implications of our empirical results.

Download

Determinants of the university technology transfer policy-mix: a cross-national analysis of gap-funding instruments

by L. Toschi and Elisa Villani

University–industry technology transfer (TT) has become increasingly insti-tutionalized and is su... more University–industry technology transfer (TT) has become increasingly insti-tutionalized and is supported by numerous reforms and initiatives at the national, regional and university levels. Most countries have implemented a policy mix involving a range of instruments to support the commercialization of research. Still, there is no systematic evidence indicating why the mix of policy instruments differs between countries. This study offers a novel cross-national investigation of the policy mix emphasizing the level of centralization and decentralization of policy instruments. We map and analyze two specific types of public instruments aimed at addressing the so-called funding gap in TT: proof of concept programs (POCs) and university-oriented seed funds (USFs). Based on a survey across 21 European countries, we find that such instruments are widely used but are organized differently depending on the level of implementation of TT practices in the country and the specific type of instrument considered. More precisely, we find a U-shaped relationship between the use of centralized gap-funding instruments and the country's implementation of TT practices. Moreover, the type of gap-funding instrument (POC or USF) moderates this relationship. We discuss the implications of our findings and suggest that the policy mix of gap-funding instruments evolve with the maturity of the national TT infrastructure.

Download

From the lab to the stock market? The characteristics and impact of university-oriented seed funds in Europe

This work investigates the role of university and PRO-oriented seed funds (USFs)— VC funds with a... more This work investigates the role of university and PRO-oriented seed funds (USFs)— VC funds with an explicit mission to make investments in academic spin-offs and support technology transfer—as instruments for addressing funding gaps and facilitating the commer- cialization of academic technologies. We first offer an overview of USFs in Europe, highlighting their heterogeneity and principal characteristics. Second, we exploit a unique data set of 1,497 start-ups (including 733 USF-backed start-ups and another 764 start-ups backed by other VC funds) to analyze how USF-backed companies perform in terms of exit rates, staging, and syndication levels when compared with non-USF-backed companies. Empirical evidence sug- gests that USF-backed companies perform better in staging and syndication but worse in exit rates. Moreover, our analyses show that, within the group of USF-backed companies, the ones that can attract more follow-on funding and investors are those financed by USFs that are internally managed by a universities/PROs and are linked to universities with high scientific rankings.

Download

Assessing the impact of public venture capital programmes in the United Kingdom: Do regional characteristics matter

This article analyses whether and how the impact of publicly backed venture capital (VC) funds va... more This article analyses whether and how the impact of publicly backed venture capital (VC) funds varies across regions, depending on their level of innovation intensity and in comparison with private VC funds. Building on agency and human capital theories, the authors distinguish public VC funds into regional and governmental types, to assess potential differences in the performance of their portfolio companies. The analyses rely on a sample of 628 VC-backed companies in the United Kingdom during 1998–2007, and they conrm that regional characteristics matter for rigorous assessments of the effectiveness of public VC programmes. Governments and regional authorities throughout Europe and the world have implemented programmes to improve small rms' access to equity nancing (Lerner, 2002b; Lockett et al., 2002; Wright and Robbie, 1998). Although this topic received considerable attention, the impact of public policies in support of venture capital (VC) markets at the regional level has not been investigated. Building on agency and human capital theories and using a large-scale sample of 628 UK companies that received rst-round backing from public and private VC funds during 1998–2007, we analyse whether and how the impact of publicly supported VC programmes varies (1) with respect to the impact of private VC funds, (2) between regional and governmental public VC funds and (3) among regions according to their level of innovation intensity. We assessed the effectiveness of publicly backed VC funds for the creation of active VC markets by studying their ability to invest in successful companies and attract additional funding from qualied VC investors in the region. Our results show a signicant reduction in investments by private VC sources in the United Kingdom, offset by the greater availability of public sources. At the same time, these public VC funds, especially those with a regional focus, are less effective because of the distortions their tight geographic constraints introduce. These negative consequences tend to be more pronounced in technologically lagging regions. Our analyses highlight the importance to consider the design of publicly supported initiatives as a critical issue to avoid damaging their overall impacts (Mason and Brown, 2013). In addition, we suggest that a mere supply-side approach is insufcient to solve the

Download

Do patents affect VC financing? Empirical evidence from the nanotechnology sector

This paper analyzes the importance given by Venture Capital firms (VCs) to the patent portfolios ... more This paper analyzes the importance given by Venture Capital firms (VCs) to the patent portfolios of start-up companies in their financing decisions. In particular, the contributions presented are twofold. First, we determine whether the amount of VC financing is associated with three elements related to technological portfolios: number of patent, patent scope and number of " core technology " patents (i.e., those patents related to core technological capabilities of the company). Second, we examine whether the relevance of patents for the financing decisions varies across different types of VC firms, depending on their industry specialization and affiliation. We provide empirical evidence from a sample of 332 VC-backed companies in the nanotechnology sector for the period 1985–2006. Our results confirm the importance of core technology patents in the VC investment decisions, especially for specialized VCs, when compared with generalist VCs. However, no differences are found between corporate and independent VCs.

Download

Bridging the University Funding Gap: Determinants and Consequences of University Seed Funds and Proof-of-Concept Programs in Europe

The limited availability of private funding sources to support technology transfer activities rep... more The limited availability of private funding sources to support technology transfer activities represents a major barrier to the effective commercialization of university technologies. This analyzes the key determinants of financial instruments by universities such as seed funds and proof-of-concept programs to address such funding gaps. Using data from a survey of technology transfer office managers in European universities, the authors detail the antecedents of the presence of such instruments at the university level and their perceived effectiveness. The findings in turn have notable policy implications.

Download

An Integration of the Resource Based View and Real Options Theory for Investments in Outside Opportunities

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000

There is a growing trend by established firms to use a multitude of External Corporate Venturing ... more There is a growing trend by established firms to use a multitude of External Corporate Venturing (ECV) mechanisms (alliances, partnerships, joint ventures, acquisitions, licensing agreements and investments in corporate venture capital) to acquire external innovations. In this paper, we develop a framework within which firms choose ECV mechanisms that are best aligned with characteristics of the target company. More precisely, we investigate the effect of relatedness and uncertainty on governance mode choices by combining the Resource-based View of the firm and Real Options Theory. We propose a bi-dimensional matrix to show under which conditions of relatedness and uncertainty corporations choose among corporate venture capital, strategic alliance, joint venture and acquisition. Finally, we present a dynamic perspective to assess how these different forms of ECV transit over time, once part of uncertainty is resolved and a certain level of familiarity with the new knowledge is achieved.

Download

Patent-backed finance

Do venture capitalists have a bias against investment in academic spin-offs? Evidence from the micro- and nanotechnology sector in the UK

Industrial and Corporate Change, 2011

In this paper, we analyse whether venture capital (VC) firms have a bias against investment in ac... more In this paper, we analyse whether venture capital (VC) firms have a bias against investment in academic spin-offs based on empirical evidence from the micro-and nanotechnology sector in the UK. We also investigate the characteristics of academic spin-offs to capture the differences in their ability to attract VC funding. Finally, we examine whether the propensity to invest in such kinds of new ventures varies between private and public VC firms. The results of our regression analyses on a sample of 247 new ventures (123 academic spin-offs and 124 other companies) reject the presence of bias in this type of science-based business.

Download

Patents as Measure of Exploration and Exploitation Strategy: The Case of CVC Investments

This paper enlarges the scope of inter-organizational learning and strategic renewal research to ... more This paper enlarges the scope of inter-organizational learning and strategic renewal research to the ongoing debate on whether companies should mainly try to exploit current trajectories rather than explore new opportunities. Scholars studying exploration and exploitation have been highlighting for long the essential trade-offs firms make in undertaking these activities offering significant support for models in which exploration and exploitation need not always be competing activities, but can and should be complementary. Little is known, however, about the specific mechanisms that drive firms' tendencies to engage in either activity or about whether and how they actually balance the two across organizational boundaries. Being an assortment of boundary spanning operations, the Corporate Venture Capital (CVC) context allows us to analyze how focal firms can articulate explorative and exploitative activities through internal and external resources. More precisely, we propose that firms could use CVC investments to resolve the exploration-exploitation tension overtime across their organizational boundaries. We test our theoretical model using patent and financial performance data for the entire population of U.S. public firms active in CVC investments over the period 1996-2006.

Download

L. Toschi

Uploads

Papers by L. Toschi

Log In