The role of human capital characteristics and heterogeneity of venture partners on the organizational performance of venture capital firms.

From a human capital perspective, we investigated the effects of education and functional experience of venture partners on the organizational performance of venture capital firms (VCFs). Furthermore, we extend on the existing literature by examining potential effects of human capital heterogeneity among these venture partners on VCF performance. We found that although some general human capital aspects did have an influence on organizational performance, specific human capital aspects did not. Moreover, we found no evidence of an effect between human capital heterogeneity and the performance of VCFs. Some of our findings differed from those of earlier studies, for instance, we found only a single significant relation between functional experience and performance. Our paper shows that research into this topic can lead to sporadic results and precautions have to be taken prior to analyzing this topic further.