Taking a Second Look at the Bait: Attention to Upside Potential Versus Downside Risk in Venture Capitalists’ Staged Investment
研究风险投资家在不同投资阶段如何平衡项目的上行潜力与下行风险，发现初期更关注上行潜力、后期更关注下行风险，并受市场VC数量、初创企业成熟度等因素影响。
This study investigates how venture capitalists (VCs) balance upside potential and downside risk across investment stages. Drawing on the attention-based view, we propose a situated attention mechanism—that is, the investment stage represents a situational consideration affecting VC’s attention allocation to different risk dimensions. We argue that varying staging situations drive VCs to prioritize upside potential in the initial stage yet downside risk in the subsequent stage. As such, VCs may initially favor a risky project, but subsequently devalue it. We further propose that these effects are contingent on number of VCs on market, start-up maturity, and VC attention constraints. Our empirical results support our predictions.