Private equity and venture capital strategies for value creation: an empirical analysis of the italian market

This Ph.D. thesis is composed by a collection of four papers resulting from the research efforts conducted over my three-year PhD program. My research aimed to assess the changes of the Italian Private Equity and Venture Capital preferences for value creation strategies in the last decade, with a focus on innovation and internationalisation outcomes. The first chapter of this work reproduces and updates the results of extant research on the socio-economic impacts of Venture Capital on the portfolio companies, highlighting the changes overtime. The second chapter addresses the developments of the academic research analysing the effects of Private Equity and Venture Capital financing on the portfolio companies' innovation performance. The analysis is carried out performing a Systematic Literature Review Network Analysis. The third chapter analyses the relation between Private Equity deals and the innovation performance of the portfolio companies both before and during the investment. Finally, the fourth chapter analyses the key value creation leverage of internationalization in relation to a sample of Italian Private Equity deals. The dissertation concludes by discussing the results, overall implications and opportunities for further research.