Låt den rätte komma in - En studie om valet av vd i entreprenörsföretag

Sammanfattning: Entrepreneurship is said to be the missing link between knowledge and growth in the Swedish economy. New ventures run a high risk of failing and this holds true especially for technology ventures. Since company leaders have proven to exert an influence on organisations' survival possibilities, the selection of an appropriate CEO is important. The purpose of this study is to describe the importance of the CEO for ventures as well as to explain how knowledge and experience affect the opinion of who should be CEO. Using a qualitative case study research design including three life science companies, we show that there are three main factors crucial when selecting a CEO. These are competency, legitimacy and owner-control. We also explain why these factors are important to technology ventures and why they result in external CEOs being considered more suitable than founder-CEOs. Finally, we discuss the implications of our results and claim that it is important to involve the founders even though they are not appointed CEO of the company.