Purpose

This paper investigates how a firm's status moderates the performance of its investment portfolio diversification strategy. We combine the investment diversification literature with the organizational status theory, arguing that status would weaken the benefits of a specialist strategy in their niche industry of investments while strengthening the positive consequences of a generalist strategy across various industries.

Design/methodology/approach

We collected our data using the Securities Data Company (SDC) Platinum VentureXpert database. A fixed-effects spline regression analysis for 2,201 US venture capital firms between 1969 and 2016 was used to test for a nonlinear relationship between the level of portfolio diversification and firm performance.

Findings

We found that status differences exist in the performance of a specialist strategy but not in that of a generalist strategy. Our results indicate that portfolio specialization in fewer number of industries has little impact on low-status firms, whereas high-status firms suffer significantly lower IPO success rates. In contrast, above-median portfolio diversification was found to be beneficial to both high- and low-status firms.

Originality/value

We specifically identify the impact of status on the performance of investment diversification strategies, an area of research which has received little attention. Further, our findings provide some practical implications for managers making investment decisions between specialist and generalist investment strategies, given their status within the market. Implications for understanding the roles of firm status in portfolio diversification strategies are discussed.

中文翻译：

---

地位对投资组合多元化战略绩效的影响

目的

本文研究了一家公司的地位如何调节其投资组合多元化战略的绩效。我们将投资多元化的文献与组织地位理论相结合，认为地位会削弱专业策略在其利基投资行业中的利益，同时会增强通才策略在各个行业中的积极影响。

设计/方法/方法

我们使用证券数据公司（SDC）的Platinum VentureXpert数据库收集了数据。1969年至2016年间，对2,201家美国风险投资公司进行了固定效果样条回归分析，以检验投资组合多元化水平与公司绩效之间的非线性关系。

发现

我们发现状态差异存在于专业策略的绩效中，而不存在于通才策略的绩效中。我们的结果表明，较少行业中的投资组合专业化对低状态公司的影响很小，而高状态公司的IPO成功率要低得多。相比之下，发现中位数以上的投资组合多样化对高地位和低地位的公司都有利。

创意/价值

我们专门确定状态对投资多元化战略绩效的影响，这是一个很少受到关注的研究领域。此外，鉴于他们在市场中的地位，我们的发现对管理人员在专业和一般投资策略之间做出投资决策提供了一些实际意义。讨论了理解公司状况在投资组合多元化战略中的作用的含义。