Board Interlocks in High Technology Ventures: The Relation to Growth, Financing, and Internationalization

The significance of boards of directors is often considered minor in unlisted companies due to the low degree of agency problems Research on the topic has also been limited due to data access issues However, networks are essential to the success of internationalizing new ventures and interlocked boards of directors have the potential to act as important information and resource conduits To improve understanding on these dynamics. we performed an exploratory cluster analysis on board interlocks of Finnish software companies using board data we obtained from the Finnish Trade Registry and a custom survey Our results indicate that companies that have international revenue are often interlocked with each other. In addition, companies without international revenue plan to internationalize if they have an interlock to a company that has international revenue. Our results are mirrored against management theory and future research is outlined