Advisory Boards in Startups (PDF)

The author shows that advisory boards in technology-based startups have seven different roles and functions: control, advice, networking, signalling, capital provision, co-management, coordination. It is shown that venture capital investors try to influence the importance of these roles in favour of control, coordination and co-management. Contrary to this, the satisfaction of founders as well as advisory board members increases with a higher importance of advice, networking and signalling. This analysis provides both qualitative and quantitative empirical data on the usage of those boards in practice.

Contents

• Literature Review of Research on Governing Boards
  
• Roles of Governing Boards Explained through Agency Theory, Resource Dependency Theory, Stewardship Theory, Stakeholder Theory, Institutional Theory and Managerial Hegemony
  
• Exploring Roles Using Qualitative and Quantitative Methods
  
• Recommendations How to Use Advisory Boards in Practice
  

Target Groups

• Researchers and students of business-related fields, particular entrepreneurship and corporate governance
  
• Entrepreneurs and investors, especially in the context of technology-based startups
  

The Author
Eric Weber co-founded SpinLab - The HHL Accelerator, a program that supports technology-based entrepreneurs in cooperation with HHL Leipzig Graduate School of Management, where he worked as research associate and startup coach and dealt with the field of entrepreneurship from both a practical and theoretical perspective