This paper discusses the issue of shareholder liability for corporate obligations in small business. Although the law allows individuals to incorporate their businesses to limit liabilities, the courts have in many cases pierced the corporate veil and held shareholders liable for obligations of...

Existing theories of the firm are silent with respect to cross-sectional differences in performance or characteristics of firms attributable to different types of managers. We hypothesize that the investment, financing and dividend decisions of founders differ systematically from those of...

The one-share, one-vote rule applicable to the governance of most business firms provides for proportional voting power which differs substantially from proportional shareholdings of investors. This problem is particularly acute in small firms where several (or many) shareholders may hold...

In planning for succession of ownership, oftentimes the owner of a private business seeks to sell the business to either family members or employees. Arranging outside financing may be difficult or costly, making internal financing attractive. Self-cancelling installment notes (SCINs) provide an...

There is now extensive evidence on short-term performance improvements in buy-outs, but little relating to the longer-term. This paper examines the relatively neglected area of the longevity and longer-term effects of smaller buy-outs. In terms of longevity, the evidence presented shows that the...

Results of many previous studies on the rate of small business failure suggest an inverse relationship between size of business and propensity to fail. However, it has been suggested that this inverse relationship, between firm size and the rate of discontinuance, may more accurately be...

A firm can merge with one of n potential partners. The owner of each firm has private information about both his firm's stand-alone value and a component of the synergies that would be realized by the merger involving his firm. We characterize incentive-efficient mechanisms in two cases. First,...

Dieses Diskussionspapier beleuchtet die PRME-Verpflichtung der Hochschule Pforzheim und die daraus resultierenden Probleme (Abschnitt 2) aus vier Perspektiven: der erkenntnistheoretischen (Abschnitt 3), der erfahrungswissenschaftlichen (Abschnitt 4), der juristischen (Abschnitt 5) und einer...

Private equity companies have become a major force in the economic landscape. Financial- and operational-engineering are innovative characteristics of this emerging method of finance. The existing empirical data provide strong evidence that private equity activity contribute positively to the...

The paper investigates the motives of activity (entry and exit) of Private Equity (PE) investors in European companies. Investment of a PE firm is not viewed unambiguously. First, it is claimed that PE investment is made for the sake of seeking shortterm gains by taking control and utilizing the...