A power model of management team restructuring and executive exit in IPO-stage firms: antecedents and performance effects

Despite an abundance of executive turnover research in the context of large public firms, little has focused on top executive change in entrepreneurial settings. This study attempts to develop a foundation of theory and evidence on management team restructuring and executive exit in new venture firms, especially for ventures which eventually go public. Taking a political perspective, the study develops and empirically tests a power model of management team restructuring and executive exit in the pre- and post-IPO periods. A central thesis of this study is that the relative power of the executive cadre shifts as an entrepreneurial firm converts from a private venture to a public company, due to the drastic change in firm political coalition structure and the skill requirements for executives. The change of power distribution among the top executives affects the likelihood of management team restructuring and executive exit. Both firm level and individual level factors were examined. The study also investigates the performance implications of pre-IPO management team restructuring and post-IPO executive exit. Empirical results support the major propositions of the power model. VC prestige was found to have a positive impact on management team restructuring and new executive entry before the IPO. Technical skills are negatively associated with pre-IPO executive exit but positively associated with post-IPO executive exit. The addition of new senior executives in the post-IPO period increases the likelihood of executive exit. In addition, when firm performance is low, adding new outside directors tends to increase the probability of executive exit in the post-IPO stage. The study found that firms that had restructured management teams before the IPO tend to have lower likelihood of executive exit in the post-IPO period. In the post-IPO stage, executives with prior public company managerial experience have a significantly lower likelihood of exit than non-managerial executives. Further, the study found that pre-IPO management team restructuring improves the firm??s pre-money market valuation at the IPO. The exits of managerial executives in the post-IPO period have negative effects on subsequent average ROA. The exits of financial executives negatively affect average shareholder return in the years following the exit events.