“亲近”还是“疏远”?———联合投资伙伴的社会期望绩效反馈与联合风险投资关系

To be close or estranged? The performance feedback relative to social aspirationsof syndication partners and venture capital syndication relationship

风险投资是支持创新创业的重要活动,但风险投资的不确定性催生了“抱团”行为的出现,与风险投资联合投资伙伴选择相关的研究也开始逐渐丰富。本文借鉴企业行为理论中的绩效反馈,以2000—2020年CVSource中记录的投资交易数据,分析了风险投资机构联合投资伙伴的社会期望绩效反馈对双方联合关系强度的影响。研究发现,当联合投资伙伴处于社会期望绩效落差状态时,为得到互惠交易流,风险投资机构与期望绩效水平较高的联合投资伙伴之间的关系变得亲近。当联合投资伙伴处于社会期望绩效顺差状态时,高期望绩效水平的联合投资伙伴为避免摊薄收益,选择不进行联合投资,因而与风险投资机构之间的关系变得疏远。此外,风险投资机构与联合投资伙伴之间的绩效差距也是进一步导致双方联合关系强度降低的重要因素。本研究从绩效反馈理论视角拓展了风险投资联合行为的相关研究,打开了联合投资伙伴之间关系动态性的黑箱,揭示了风险投资联合行为的内在规律。

As an important activity to promote innovation and support startups,venture capital plays a meaningful role in supporting the real economy and promoting startups to create social value.The high degree of uncertainty in venture capital and the large amount of capital required by portfolio companies have led to venture capital syndication.As a result,understanding how venture capital institutions select syndication partners,has become an interesting research topic,and the study of syndication partner selection is the key to better understanding the venture capital syndication relationships.Although the amount of research on syndication partner selection is gradually growing,the research on syndication behavior based on a dynamic perspective is relatively unexplored.Thus,the topic of identifying valuable potential syndication partners and adjusting the future syndication behaviors by observing the friction between venture capital institutions and syndication partners deserves further exploration.This paper considers using the performance feedback applied in the behavioral theory of the firm to explain whether the relationship between venture capital institutions and their partners is close or estranged.In order to measure the performance feedback,this paper compares the performance level of each syndication partner with the performance aspirations of all syndication partners of the institution.By obtaining the performance feedback information,we evaluate the syndication value of the syndication partner,and derive the level of the follow-up strength of syndication with the syndication partner.Based on the data from the CVSource database from 2000 to 2020,this paper takes 3-years-rolling windows to measure venture capital syndication behaviors.Furthermore,a mixed cross-section model is adopted to analyze the impact of performance relative to social aspirations on the strength of syndication between the institutions and their partners.This paper divides the performance relative to social aspirations of venture capital institutions′syndication partners into two cases:performance below aspirations and performance above aspirations,to analyze the impact on the strength of the relationship between institutions and their syndication partners.This study concluded the following:1)The syndication partners that perform above aspirations decrease the strength of the syndication relationship between the institutions and these syndication partners.And the syndication partners that perform below aspirations increase the strength of the syndication relationship between the institutions and these syndication partners.Next,the benchmark regression is tested again,and the results are still robust.This is achieved by replacing the performance level of social aspirations measured by the mean value with the median value of the independent variable,extending the 3-year time windows of the dependent variable to 5 years,replacing the strength of the syndication relationship between venture capital institutions and syndication partners of the dependent variable with the number of investment in same rounds by both parties,and changing the OLS model to negative binomial regression and zero expansion negative binomial regression.2)After testing the internal mechanisms,it was discovered that when syndication partners are in the state of performance below aspirations,the level of performance heterogeneity between venture capital institutions and their syndication partners will weaken the positive correlation between the performance aspirations of syndication partners and the strength of the syndication relationship.In addition,the syndication partners that perform above aspirations will decrease the probability of further syndication,which can explain the reason for the low strength of syndication between venture capital institutions and their partners.3)The extended research shows that when syndication partners are in the state of performance above aspirations,the performance gap between venture capital institutions and their syndication partners will enhance the negative correlation between syndication partners′performance above aspirations and the strength of the syndication relationship.On the other side,when syndication partners are in the state of performance below aspirations,the performance gap will weaken the positive correlation between syndication partners′performance below aspirations and the strength of the syndication relationship.In summary,venture capital institutions are more likely to have a strong syndication relationship with partners who are in a relatively low degree of performance above or below aspirations.This is because when the syndication partners are in a state of performance below aspirations and motivated by reciprocal transaction flow,venture capital institutions become closer to syndication partners.On the other hand,when the syndication partners are in the state of performance above aspirations,they tend not to syndicate to avoid diluting returns,which leads to the estrangement with venture capital institutions.In addition,the performance gap between venture capital institutions and their syndication partners is also an important factor that further reduces the strength of the syndication.This study expanded the related research on venture capital syndication behavior from the perspective of performance feedback theory,and revealed the inherent laws of syndication relationships with a dynamic research perspective.