Corporate Venture Capital, Disclosure, and Financial Reporting

Corporate Governance: An International Review, Nov. 2021, Vol. 29, No. 6, pp. 541-566

51 Pages Posted: 3 Jan 2018 Last revised: 15 Mar 2022

See all articles by Sophia Hamm

Sophia Hamm

Tulane University - A.B. Freeman School of Business

Michael J. Jung

University of Delaware - Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics

Min Park

University of Kansas - Accounting and Information Systems Area

Multiple version iconThere are 2 versions of this paper

Date Written: December 2, 2019

Abstract

Corporate venture capital (CVC) is one of the most important avenues for corporate innovation today, yet there can be unintended consequences related to anticompetitive practices. Recent scrutiny from regulators and policymakers underscores their growing desire for more information about firms’ CVC investment activities, even of those previously believed to be too small to matter. Using a comprehensive sample of 115 publicly-listed U.S. parent firms that owned 133 CVC firms, we document that for almost half of the firm-years in our sample, parent firms do not disclose any information about their CVC program. Among the parent firms that do disclose their CVC activities, we find that they disclose less when they make investments in industries outside of their core industry. Firms with a CVC program, relative to similar firms without a CVC program, tend to make more future acquisitions and report less future goodwill asset write-downs. This study documents the current state of affairs with respect to the amount of publicly available CVC information for a large sample of firms, an important starting point for regulators and policymakers to conduct an informed debate about whether disclosure requirements should be expanded.

Keywords: Corporate venture capital, voluntary disclosure, acquisitions, financial reporting

JEL Classification: M41, G11, G24, G32, G34

Suggested Citation

Hamm, Sophia and Jung, Michael J. and Park, Min, Corporate Venture Capital, Disclosure, and Financial Reporting (December 2, 2019). Corporate Governance: An International Review, Nov. 2021, Vol. 29, No. 6, pp. 541-566, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3090797 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3090797

Sophia Hamm

Tulane University - A.B. Freeman School of Business ( email )

7 McAlister Drive
New Orleans, LA 70118
United States

Michael J. Jung (Contact Author)

University of Delaware - Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics ( email )

Newark, DE 19716
United States

Min Park

University of Kansas - Accounting and Information Systems Area ( email )

1654 Naismith Drive
Lawrence, KS 66045
United States

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