PhD position on performance aspirations in venture capital-backed companies

☞ KU Leuven

Vue: 160

Jour de mise à jour: 02-12-2025

Localisation: Leuven Flemish Brabant

Catégorie: Finance / Banque / Stock Direction

Industrie:

Type d’emploi: Full-time

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le contenu du travail

This position would be a PhD position at the department of Managerial Economics, Strategy and Innovation (MSI) at KU Leuven and the Entrepreneurship, Governance and Strategy department at Vlerick Business School, where you will be supervised by prof. dr. Veroniek Collewaert. The co-supervisor of this project is prof. dr. Jeroen Neckebrouck from IESE Business School (Barcelona, Spain). The initial position is at KUL/Vlerick, but there is potential for a joint PhD with IESE. Both departments and faculty involved have produced a large set of publications in international and national leading academic journals.
Website van de eenheid

Project

The Behavioral Theory of the Firm (BTOF) is one of the most widely used theories to explain firm conduct. According to the theory, decision-makers prospectively set targets for acceptable performance based on their firm’s historical performance and the performance of industry peers, and evaluate the need to change strategies by comparing actual organizational performance with those targets. While a sizeable body of work has built on the theory to explain a wide set of strategic outcomes (including expansion; mergers and acquisitions; diversification; changes to product format; and market positioning), empirical results often remain mixed.
In this project, we propose that more accurate predictions of firm strategic conduct can be obtained by adopting a governance perspective to BTOF on how decision makers set their targets for acceptable performance, and hence evaluate and respond to performance outcomes. In particular, we propose that venture capital (VC) investors are a key party who may substantially influence what managers pay attention to. First, we would like to study under what conditions VC-backed firms focus more on peer relative to historical performance. While we know both components matter for performance evaluation, we know far less about which matters more when. Second, we would like to examine under what conditions firms focus more on recent than distant performance when confronted with performance discrepancies. To date, scholars have assumed all companies are the same in terms of how much they weigh recent versus more distant past performance in their performance evaluations – we challenge this by proposing that key governance factors will shift the relative attention more to one over the other. Finally, we would like to study how the strategic focus of VCs may impact what performance metric managers pay attention to and the type of strategic (re)action management initiates in case of performance discrepancies.
Overall, this project will provide a better insight into how decision-makers such as entrepreneurs set targets for acceptable performance and will more accurately explain strategic firm conduct – most notably in a VC-backed context. VC’s importance to our overall economy cannot be underestimated: VC-backed companies employed roughly 10 million people in Europe in 2019 and VC has been shown to be a key accelerator for firm growth and innovation (Invest Europe, 2020; Lerner & Nanda, 2020; Rosenbusch et al., 2013). As an illustration, whereas only 0.5% of all companies receive VC, more than half of all publicly traded companies are VC-backed (Lerner & Nanda, 2020).
Our research questions will be addressed through a combination of field data gathered from VCs, financial accounting and governance information from databases such as Orbis Global (Bureau Van Dijk), media and CEO/board turnover information from ProQuest Global Newsstream, innovation data from Patstat and the Community Innovation Surveys of Eurostat and VC fund focus data from the Thomson Reuters Eikon database.

As a PhD student, your key tasks will consist of the following:
  • Follow extensive PhD training preparing you for a PhD and consequent academic career
  • Data collection most typically through quantitatively-oriented databases
  • Data analysis requiring in-depth understanding of econometrics (i.e. mostly quantitative analyses)
  • Writing of scientific articles with the aim of including them in your PhD dissertation
  • Active participation in (international) seminars and conferences
  • Completion of the PhD program of the Faculty of Economics and Business at KUL
  • Conducting practitioner-oriented research on high-growth companies

Profiel

You have:

  • A Master’s degree in Economics, Business Economics, Commercial Engineering, Civil Engineering or similar
  • Outstanding record of academic achievement: at least two ‘honours’ (i.e. cum laude, distinction) mentions over the course of your higher education
  • Strong analytical and conceptual problem-solving skills: given the quantitative nature of this project, experience with and a knack for quantitative data and analyses is a must
  • Enthusiastic and motivated to do research
  • Interest in entrepreneurship and governance
  • Ability to communicate complex ideas effectively in English and Dutch, both verbally and in writing
  • Knowledge of statistics and econometrics is an asset (but not a necessity)

Aanbod

We offer a scholarship as a full-time doctoral researcher in a stimulating environment starting around September 1st 2023 under the supervision of professors Veroniek Collewaert and Jeroen Neckebrouck.
You will get additional training on methodological and content-related topics via the KU Leuven doctoral program (other courses can be discussed).
The position is for four years.



Interesse?

Meer informatie is te verkrijgen bij prof. dr. Veroniek Collewaert, tel.: +32 16 37 65 84, mail: veroniek.collewaert@kuleuven.be of mevrouw Isabelle Theys, tel.: +32 16 37 63 61, mail: isabelle.theys@kuleuven.be.
Solliciteren voor deze vacature kan tot en met 01/06/2023 via onze online sollicitatietoepassing
KU Leuven wil een omgeving creëren waarin alle talenten maximaal tot ontplooiing kunnen komen, ongeacht gender, leeftijd, culturele herkomst, nationaliteit of functiebeperking. Hebt u vragen in verband met toegankelijkheid of ondersteuningsmogelijkheden, dan kan u ons contacteren via diversiteit.HR@kuleuven.be.
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Date limite: 16-01-2026

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