Influence of the Entrepreneurial Behavior on Risk and Performance of the High-Technology Companies in the USA

This study explores the question of entrepreneur’s behavior (its influence on the company’s risks and performance) and also researches the problem of the entrepreneurial long-term strategy. The problem of the entrepreneur’s impact on the company’s performance has attracted a lot of attention among scientific society during recent years, when the entrepreneurial firms became to occupy leading positions in the American market. The focus of our paper is on the suggestion that entrepreneur’s involvement in the management differently influences company’s activity. Moreover, we investigate entrepreneur’s initial motives towards his business in the long-term. Using the large sample of US high-technology firms we determine that depending on the position in the company (CEO, Director, major shareholder) entrepreneur differently influences the company’s performance, risks and R&D expense. Our findings of entrepreneur behavior, based on logit-regression analyses, determine that low risks induce entrepreneur to follow “exit strategy” whereas strong performance is the main reasons to the family business strategy. We suggest several new research opportunities for further investigation of entrepreneur’s activities in the company’s life cycle.