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American Economic Review Vol. 105 No. 5 2015

Do Private Equity Owned Firms Have Better Management Practices?

Nicholas Bloom1; Raffaella Sadun2; John Van Reenen3

1 Stanford University, 579 Serra Mall, Stanford, CA 94305 (e-mail: ) · 2 Harvard Business School, Harvard University, Morgan Hall (e-mail: ) · 3 London School of Economics, Houghton Street, London, WC2A 2AE (e-mail: )

Abstract

Using an innovative survey measure of management practices on over 15,000 firms, we find private equity firms are better managed than government, family, and privately owned firms, and have similar management to publicly listed firms. This is true both in developed and developing countries. Looking at management practices in detail we find that private equity owned firms have strong people management practices (hiring, firing, pay, and promotions), but even stronger monitoring management practices (lean manufacturing, continuous improvement, and monitoring). Plant managers working in private equity owned firms also report greater autonomy from headquarters over sales, marketing, and new product introduction.

DOI
10.1257/aer.p20151000
Volume
105
Issue
5
Pages
442-446
Language
en
Sources
bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref

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