Government Venture Capital: Connotation Characteristics, Impacts,  and Future Prospects

Shao Yue; Chen Xiafei

doi:doi:10.16538/j.cnki.fem.20230426.401

Summary

With the booming practice of government venture capital (GVC), the research on GVC has attracted the attention of scholars at home and abroad. However, the current research is still relatively scattered, especially, the impacts and mechanisms of GVC are still unclear. The systematic analysis of the impacts of GVC is helpful to clarify the theoretical basis and mechanisms, and thus promote the practical development of venture capital. Based on mainstream English databases (e.g., Web of Science) and CNKI, the research scope of 93 literatures is determined. According to the integrated analysis framework of “mechanisms → impacts ← boundary conditions”, this paper sorts out and integrates the knowledge of the impacts of GVC field.This paper proposes the general rule of GVC functions: Based on political missions and financial demands, GVC screens out and invests in ventures. GVC’s support reflects the “national will” and affects the financing activities of ventures, investment activities of private venture capital (PVC), and regional development directions. The capital and political resources of GVC help to exert the nurturing effect, thus affecting the ventures’ growth, innovation, and successful exit. The syndication of GVC and PVC has different effects based on different theoretical bases. According to the complementary assets theory, the complementarity of resources is conducive to the cooperation between the two sides and plays a synergistic role; according to the agency theory, the inconsistency of goals easily leads to conflicts and competition between the two sides. Due to the heterogeneity of investors, ventures, and environmental factors, GVC has significant differences in exerting its effect.The expansion directions of future impacts include that: To conduct cross-level research; to pay attention to the impacts of syndication; to explore the potential impacts; to analyze the impacts based on the qualitative comparative analysis method; and to expand the boundary conditions. The expansion directions related to the Chinese context are that: To explore the mechanisms and impacts of GVC from the perspective of agency theory; and to explore the design of GVC practice rooted in the institutional background of China.The main contributions of this paper are as follows: First, it demonstrates the uniqueness of GVC. Second, it deepens the analysis of relevant theoretical basis, mechanisms, and boundary conditions. In addition, considering the strategic significance of GVC to regional development, it supplements the impacts of GVC on the regional level. Third, based on the uniqueness of the Chinese context and the GVC impact research, it proposes future research directions.