Corporations—Finance

The recent increase in common ownership makes it imperative to study the impact of common ownership on corporate policies. In this two-essay study, I examine how common owners interact with firms to make decisions and how they moderate the impact of market manipulation on corporate culture.
In the first essay, I examine whether firms in the same industry make similar investment and financial policies when their large institutional owners overlap. This relationship is important given the tremendous rise of common institutional owners and their significance on their portfolio firms’ policies. I hypothesize that common institutional owners cause their portfolio firms in the same industry to make similar policies by creating anti-competitive incentives, reducing information asymmetry, and influencing governance.

The modern organization is “a nexus of contracts” among various stakeholders. In this two-essay study, I examine how contracts surrounding entrepreneurial firms, namely contracts with the U.S. government agencies as customers and contracts with venture capital (VC) firms as investors, interact.
In the first essay, I examine whether and how the ex-post government contracting activity of portfolio companies affects the performance of VC investments. Prior research establishes the impact of government customers on the contractor's operating performance and information quality. I find that government contracting improves the likelihood of successful exits via initial public offering (IPO) or acquisition and reduces the likelihood of a liquidation. I also find that the suppliers’ bargaining power relative to the government moderates the relationship between government contracting and VC investment exits. The increased suppliers’ bargaining power mitigates the positive relationship between government contracting and the likelihood of IPOs. The impact of government contracting on the likelihood of acquisitions and liquidations is more substantial for suppliers with greater bargaining power. The results are robust for reputable and non-reputable VC firms, alternative model specifications, and adjustments for potential endogeneity.