Evaluation uncertainty of venture capitalists’ investment criteria

Publication Type

Journal contribution (peer reviewed)

Authors

Kollmann, Tobias / Kuckertz, Andreas

Year of publication

2010

Published in

Journal of Business Research

Band/Volume

63/7

Page (from - to)

741–747

This paper analyzes the decision process of venture capitalists. The study focuses on aligning the evaluation uncertainty in the decision criteria of venture capitalists with the progress of the process. The reasoning builds from the concept of search, experience and credence qualities, which was developed in the economics of information and allows the identification of the varying uncertainty of a single decision criterion compared to other criteria, along with uncertainty variations throughout the process. Exploratory empirical evidence suggests that in the early steps of the process in particular, management criteria are uncertain, while at the end of the process other criteria couple with uncertainty.