Essays On The Role Of Competitor-Specific Human Capital On Initial Public Offerings (ipos) Performance

This dissertation splits the idea of competitor-specific human capital into two types: competitor-specific-direct (CSD) human capital and competitor-specific-indirect (CSI) human capital, and inspects how these two types of human capital held by IPO Top Management Team (TMT) members are associated with IPO performance. Furthermore, by utilizing research on human capital, competitive dynamics, and knowledge-based view of the firm, this dissertation identifies important antecedents that result in higher degree of impact of such human capital on the IPO firm, and IPO firm\u27s capabilities absorb such knowledge that results in higher valuations at IPO. By employing a multi-year panel data of new IPOs between 1995-2010 within the context of U.S. semiconductor industry, the first chapter shows that the prevalence of CSD and CSI knowledge in the TMT of IPO firms leads to higher market valuations of the IPO firm. Moreover, the results show that the prior employment characteristics such as tenure and the position held at competitor firms, and the complexity of the competitor source firm (the product-market diversity and the learning emphasis) moderate the relationship between CSD and CSI human capital and IPO performance. The second chapter explores internal characteristics of the IPO firm that facilitate its ability to exploit the CSD and CSI human capital. I argue that in the context of new ventures, TMT intellectual capital plays an integral role in churning information into useful knowledge of one\u27s competitors or group of competitors. Additionally, results indicate that TMT\u27s potential absorptive capacity, shared team-specific experience, and CEO\u27s functional background influence the relationship between CSD and CSI human capital and IPO performance