The economic importance of entrepreneurs as innovators, drivers of societal change, and contributors to wealth creation is uncontested. Researchers from various disciplines have investigated the process of new firm creation as well as the role of entrepreneurs in that process. In the same fashion, the role of venture capital investors as supporters of entrepreneurs has been widely studied and is reasonably well understood by entrepreneurship scholars today. Rapid firm growth fueled by venture capital investments triggers tremendous dynamics in the development of young firms. However,...

Driven by the convergence of international ?nancial public markets, investors around the globe are searching for alternative asset classes which provide diversi?cation of their portfolios while earning attractive returns. Private equity, denominating equity investments in privately held companies, promises to ful?ll both criteria. Over the last three decades, the global private equity industry has experienced an enormous growth. Private equity has become an important ingredient in the portfolios of institutional investors, such as banks, insurance companies and pension funds. Despite its...

Research on the patent system and the analysis of patenting activities have become an important field in economics and l)usin(ss administration. The global demand for patcuit protection has been increasing strongly over the last decades. Institutional changes as well as the broadening of patentable subject matter pose new challenges to patentees and patent offices alike. Especially in Europe, the debate on the patentabihty of biotechnology and softwa- related inventions led to broad public attention to the design of the patent system. Given these developments, it is no wonder that...