Focus
While the current literature looks at founder at the start-up phase of the firm, we research the role these founders play when their firm grows large. More specifically, we look at founders at the time of the IPO, and also at founder-CEOs of large public firms.
Some of the key insights include the following:
- When founders lose power at the turmoil of the IPO, they get frustrated and increase their likelihood to exit their firm.
- Founders play a key figurehead role at IPO and their presence and background affect the fundraising efforts. More specifically, specialist founders (in an industry or function) are perceived more favourably by IPO investors than founders that are ‘jack of all trades’. Consequently, specialist founders tend to raise more funding at IPO. In other words, investors expect domain experts to bring the growing firm to the next level of performance.
Another focus of this «field of expertise» is how entrepreneurs behave and feel. More specifically, we have investigated the concepts of hope and fear, as well as stress and mental well-being. In addition, we work on how entrepreneurs’ appearance (clothing and body weight) affects their chances of raising funding.
Publications and working papers
IPOs and Exits
- Souitaris, V., Peng, B., Zerbinati, S. and Shepherd, D.A. (2023). Specialists, Generalists, or Both? Founders’ Multidimensional Breadth of Experience and Entrepreneurial Ventures’ Fundraising at IPO. Organization Science, 54(2), 557-588.
- Shepherd, D., Souitaris, V. and Gruber, M. (2021) Creating new ventures. A review and research agenda. Journal of Management, 47(1), 11-42.
- Souitaris, V., Zerbinati, S., Peng, G., Shepherd, D. (2020) Should I Stay or Should I Go? Founder Power and Exit via Initial Public Offering. Academy of Management Journal, 63(1): 64-95.
Entrepreneurial Behavior
- Souitaris, V., Nicolaou, N., Waters, J., Shepherd, D. and Hashem, N. (2026) Does Self-Employment Increase Stress? A Co-Twin Control Analysis of Finnish and US Twins. Journal of Business Venturing, 41(1), 106556
- Wesemann-Lekkas, H., Antretter, T., Souitaris, V., Shepherd, D. and Wincent, J. (2026 forthcoming). Appearing Authentic: How Dress Formality Influences Perceived Authenticity in Investment Evaluations. Journal of Management.
- Antretter, T., Wesemann Lekkas, H., Djokovic, D., Souitaris, V., Wincent, J. (2025) Not what you expected to see? Obesity stereotypes, expectancy violations, and angel investment decisions, Journal of Business Venturing, 40(5), 106510.
- Huang, T., Souitaris, V., and Barsade, S. (2019) Which matters more? Group fear versus hope in entrepreneurial escalation of commitment. Strategic Management journal, 40 (11):1852–1881.
- Hsueh, J. Souitaris, V., Bird, M., Entrepreneurs’ mind power: The change of entrepreneurs’ mental well-being and its influence on entrepreneurial income. Working paper, under review.
Research projects
IPOS and Exits
- SNSF Grant 2015-2018. The Journey of Entrepreneurial Exit: Antecedents, Forms, and Evolution (with Djordje Djokovic). My research team investigates aspects of entrepreneurial exit based on a unique database based in the UK
- Founder CEOs: A contingency assessment of their impact, GFF research grant (Kalogeraki, Souitaris, Georgakakis),
Exploring the impact of founder succession in large public firms
Entrepreneurial Behavior
- Appearance and behavioral antecedents of successful entrepreneurial pitches, SNSF grant is in preparation. After two successful publications in this area, our team is preparing an SNSF grant application.
- Entrepreneurship and mental well-being, GFF research grant (Hsueh, Souitaris, Kowatsch). We explore whether behavioural therapy affects well-being of entrepreneurs, using an application-based CBT-tool, which follows a set of entrepreneurs/participants longitudinally.
Impact and transfer
We regularly communicate these ideas and research results in the classroom, for example in Master’s degrees in Management (High-Growth Entrepreneurship course for MUG and MBI) and in PhD workshops (e.g. how to become a top scholar workshop).
