آیا چرخه عمر سازمانی و سرمایه گذاری ریسک پذیر سرمایه گذاران سیستم های کنترل مدیریت مورد استفاده توسط شرکت را تحت تاثیر قرار می دهد؟

This paper investigates how the organizational life-cycle stage of the firm and the existence of venture capital investors affect the use of management control systems. The study consists of three types of management control systems, i.e. business planning, budgeting and management control techniques. Our empirical analyses are based on a survey questionnaire of 105 Finnish firms operating in all industries at different life-cycle stages. The results indicate that the business planning and use of management control techniques differ between the organizational life-cycle stage of the firm and the existence of venture capital investors. However, the existence of venture capital investors is also essential in maturity and revival firms while the earlier literature emphasizes their role in start-up and growth firms. Our results remain the same after conducting various robustness checks.

Earlier research on management control systems reports that various organizational features, such as the technology or strategy of the firm, explain the use of management control systems in the firms. However, the published evidence on how the organizational life-cycle stage of the firm affects the use of management control systems is very limited. Exceptions include Moores and Yuen (2001),Auzair and Langfield-Smith (2005),Davila (2005) andGranlund and Taipaleenmäki (2005). These studies report that the organizational life-cycle has a significant impact on the management control systems used by the firm, and that the influence is especially important for growing firms. Previous studies investigating the effect of venture capital investors on the decision-making process of the firm report that venture capital investors play an important role by financing start-up and growing firms, especially in the field of high technology (e.g. Cassar, 2004, Davila et al., 2003 and Hellman and Puri, 2002). Venture capital investors have great power over several areas of business, including business development, strategic decisions and management control. In this paper, we investigate the use of the management control systems of the firms operating in different life-cycle stages. The study focuses on three types of management control systems, i.e. business planning, budgeting and management control techniques. In addition, we investigate the role of venture capital investors in the firm's use of management control systems in different life-cycle stages of the firm. Our empirical analyses are based on the survey data of 105 Finnish firms operating in several industries and in all life-cycle stages. The analysis of life-cycle configuration can help firms to adopt new procedures in achieving efficiency. Knowledge of the overall use of management control systems helps to predict the future development of firms and helps firms to move on along in their life-cycle. The paper extends the current literature in three main respects. First, it contributes to the literature on the management control systems used by the firms by providing evidence of how the life-cycle stage of the firm affects the use of management control systems. More specifically, the present study extends the earlier literature by providing evidence on the use of business planning, budgeting and management control techniques at different organizational life-cycle stages. Second, we explore the role of venture capital providers in the firms' use of management control systems. Earlier studies have investigated how this contingency variable affects the overall use of management control systems at a more general level while we investigate the interaction effect of venture capital investors and the organizational life-cycle stage on the use of management control systems (e.g. Davila, 2005, Granlund and Taipaleenmäki, 2005 and Laitinen, 2001). Third, the paper contributes to the literature by providing results outside the UK, the US or Australia. Finland provides a good empirical setting for the study, because a large amount of new firms for which venture capital providers are an important source of funds have been established there during the last decade. Many of these firms are fast growing R&D-intensive firms operating in the field of high technology. These firms passed their first growth stage during the 1990s and, hence, the first of them are at the beginning of their revival stage. This provides an interesting setting for the study because the role of venture capital investors has usually investigated in start-up and growth firms (e.g. Cassar, 2004, Davila et al., 2003 and Hellman and Puri, 2002). Previous studies on the effect of venture capital investors on the use of management accounting practices in later stages of the life-cycle are limited even tough Miller and Friesen (1984) suggest that the revival stage is in many ways the most exciting and challenging of the five life-cycle stages.

Previous studies suggest that the life-cycle stage of the firm affects the management control systems used by the firm. In addition, previous studies point out that venture capital investors play an important role by financing start-up and growing firms. Venture capital investors affect several areas of business, such as business development, strategic decisions and management control. Therefore, we investigate if the organizational life-cycle stage of the firm and the existence of venture capital investors affect the use of management control systems i.e. business planning, budgeting and management control techniques. Our empirical analyses are based on a survey questionnaire of 105 Finnish firms covering all industries and life-cycle stages. The results indicate that the growth and revival firms put more emphasis on increasing the value of the firm than the maturity firms do. The existence of venture capital investors can be seen in business goal setting because increasing the value of the firm and producing profit to owners is more important for the maturity firms having venture capital investors than for the firms without venture funding. The planning horizon for the next 5 years is important in all life-cycle stages. However, the results indicate that the planning horizon is longest in growth firms which have venture capital investors. Budgeting is usually a form of co-operation in all firms despite the life-cycle stage of the firm. However, the most authoritarian budgeting is applied at the maturity stage and a less formal method again in revival firms. The result is consistent with Miller and Friesen's (1983) life-cycle model, which suggests that an organization is at its most bureaucratic in its mature stage. However, we expected that budgeting as formal control system becomes more common when firm move along with the life-cycle. The result is contrary to the earlier studies indicating that venture capital investors require more reliable budgeting among other reporting. Revival firms with venture financing use ERP system during the revival stage while other firms have not adopted technique at all. The results reveal that earnings management and control of profit centers become more important when a firm approaches the end of its life-cycle because revival firms seem to place more emphasis on these success factors than do other firms. However, these are not important success factors in venture capital funded revival firms. We conclude that the business planning and use of management control techniques differ between the organizational life-cycle stage of the firm and the existence of venture capital investors while the budgeting is quite similar despite the affect these two contingency factors. In addition, the existence of venture capital investors is also essential in maturity and revival firms while the earlier literature emphasizes their role start-up and growth firms. The organizational life-cycle approach provides an interesting setting for future research because the published evidence on how the organizational life-cycle stage of the firm affects the use of management accounting and control systems is very limited (Auzair and Langfield-Smith, 2005, Davila, 2005, Granlund and Taipaleenmäki, 2005 and Moores and Yuen, 2001). The specific analyses of the life-cycle stages would increase the predictability of future development of the firm. For instance, an analysis of the differences between the first and second growth stages would help growing firms while accounting literature does not traditionally distinguish between growth and revival stages (e.g. Macintosh, 1995). On the contrary, the deeper analysis of the maturity and decline stages would help firms to recognize the special characteristics linked to decline of the business. The role of informal controls especially needs to be investigated in this setting because earlier studies focus mainly on formal controls. Triangulation between survey method and case study may provide a relatively strong means of assessing the degree of convergence as well as elaborating on divergences between results obtained (e.g. Model, 2005). Likewise, a case study method would contribute to a more holistic and richer contextual understanding of survey results and help to explain apparent anomalies and issues rising from the survey.