IE Repository
IE University Institutional Open Repository
Welcome to IE University Repository, an open access platform that collects, manages, and preserves the academic and research output of our university. This Repository aims to enhance the visibility and impact of our research community while fulfilling open access mandates from funding agencies and institutional policies, such as Law 17/2022 on Science, Technology, and Innovation, in addition to the National Agency for Quality Assessment and Accreditation (ANECA) for accreditations and sexenios (recognition of six-year research period).
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Managing Compliance and Risk Management in Health Care Settings
(Ie University, 2025) Rivera, Darwin Michael; Sarmiento, Alvaro Arenas; https://ror.org/02jjdwm75
This dissertation investigates how organizations operating in highly regulated environments manage the concurrent demands of regulatory compliance and information security risk management. Drawing on Oliver’s (1991) theory of strategic responses to institutional pressures, the study examines how organizations respond to overlapping external and internal pressures—particularly under resource constraints.
Guided by two central research questions—(1) How do organizations manage compliance and risk management concurrently? and (2) How do they allocate resources to maximize compliance while minimizing security risks?—the study adopts an integrative approach that bridges the traditionally siloed domains of compliance, risk management, and information security.
The research employs a two-part empirical design: a content analysis of compliance policies from 30 healthcare organizations and a case study of a children's hospital implementing a DEA-mandated Electronic Prescription for Controlled Substances (EPCS) system. The findings contribute to theory by identifying a previously undocumented tactic—prioritization—that organizations use to reconcile competing institutional demands. Another theoretical contribution is the development of a process model and a set of propositions that illustrate how organizations operating in highly regulated environments navigate the dual imperatives of compliance and risk management.
By linking policy artifacts with real-world organizational behavior, this dissertation offers both scholarly and practical insights into how organizations navigate institutional complexity, enhance compliance maturity, and align security and regulatory needs.
What Goes Up, Must Come Down: An Exploration of Hype in Entrepreneurship and New-Venture Finance
(IE University, 2025) Boada Rodríguez, Eduardo Andrés; Lerner, Daniel Andrew; https://ror.org/02jjdwm75
This dissertation advances scholarship on entrepreneurial hype by offering a comprehensive analysis of its origins, mechanisms, and consequences across entrepreneurial ventures, venture capital markets, and investor decision-making. Drawing on interdisciplinary insights from entrepreneurship, sociology of expectations, and behavioral finance, the research comprises three interconnected studies that collectively unpack the nuanced dynamics underlying hype phenomena. The first study synthesizes existing literature from entrepreneurship and innovation studies to conceptualize hype as an expectation-driven process manifesting at venture, industry, and market levels. It identifies hype as both a strategic tool entrepreneurs deploy to secure resources and legitimacy, and as a broader market-level dynamic influencing industry trajectories and capital flows. The second study empirically investigates the highly financialized, disruption-oriented, and fast-growing entrepreneurial model that has has become the center of attention for scholars and the public, and its financial cornerstone, venture capital, positioning them as socio-technical systemts subject to hype cycles. Through qualitative analysis of public discourse over two decades, it reveals the instability and contestation underlying what is typically perceived as a dominant entrepreneurial paradigm, contributing to debates around sustainability and ethical challenges inherent to this approach to entrepreneurship. The third study employs experimental methods to examine how counterfactual emotions, particularly fear of errors of commission (investing incorrectly) and omission (missed opportunities), influence early-stage investment decisions. Findings reveal that potential regret associated with commission errors significantly curtails investor willingness to commit capital, illuminating how emotional and social dynamics critically shape investor behavior under conditions of uncertainty. Together, these chapters provide novel theoretical and practical insights, emphasizing the interplay between entrepreneurial narratives, investor cognition, and socio-economic environments. The dissertation not only deepens the understanding of entrepreneurial hype but also informs stakeholders on navigating the delicate balance between leveraging and mitigating hype within contemporary entrepreneurial ecosystems.
Data Breaches and Accounting: Three Essays
(IE University, 2025) Alkhoury, Christelle; Carrera, Nieves; https://ror.org/02jjdwm75
This dissertation examines key challenges in firms’ data security, focusing on board interlocks, scientific disclosures, and audit offices, through an analysis of secondary data from multiple sources.
In Chapter 1, I examine whether spillover effects of data breaches present themselves through board interlocks. In testing this, I empirically show that interlocking to previously breached firms or firms that will experience a breach, puts focal firms at a higher risk of experiencing a breach. The findings show a dark side of interlocking, and contribute to the corporate governance, spillover effects, data security, and social capital literatures.
In Chapter 2, I investigate how exposure to data breach risk affects firms’ issuance of scientific publications. In doing so, I examine how peer breaches impact firms’ publishing decisions. I argue that firms publish less to avoid signaling valuable intellectual property, revealing an indirect economic cost of data breaches. This study contributes to the literature on non-financial disclosures, and answers calls for more research on publishing incentives and non-traditional disclosures.
In Chapter 3, I move the focus to audit offices and assess the effect of audit offices’ cybersecurity experience and range of industry experiences on their clients’ breach likelihood. I find that clients are more likely to experience a breach when the audit office has had a previously breached client or will have a breached client. However, this breach likelihood is decreased when auditors have a broad industry range. This study contributes to the cybersecurity research within the auditing literature and to the literature on the effects of audit office experiences. Also, it is valuable to regulators in the public domain.
Taken together, these three chapters are relevant and timely given the increased impact and significance of data breaches. As such, these studies should have a contemporary appeal to both academics and practitioners.
A Natural Fit: Exploring Business-Owning Families’ Antecedents and Approaches to Impact Investing and Social Venturing
(IE University, 2025) Roche, Jeanne; Justo, Rachida; https://ror.org/02jjdwm75
This dissertation examines the engagement of business-owning families and their members in the fields of impact investing and social venturing, and contributes to three key areas. First, it advances family business scholarship by extending the study of business-owning families beyond the boundaries of the family firm. It highlights their heterogeneous engagement in social endeavors, offering a nuanced understanding of how they balance a hybridity of objectives, both financial and non-financial, based on their unique frame of reference. Second, it contributes to entrepreneurship research by shedding light on how individuals construct entrepreneurial identities in nascent and ambiguous fields such as impact investing, and how they may use their family as a salient social referent to guide their identity construction. Third, it provides new insights into social entrepreneurship and cross-sector collaborations by examining the case of a social enterprise selling the majority of its shares to a large family group. The study identifies how both entities were integrated in ways that helped sustain social impact post-acquisition, informing both scholars and practitioners on structuring mission-driven partnerships. By integrating these perspectives, this dissertation deepens our understanding of business-owning families’ social behaviors, the crafting of entrepreneurial identity in new fields, and the conditions under which social enterprises can maintain their purpose in cross-sector partnerships.
Value Creation in Private Equity Transactions: Actions for Multiple Expansion
(IE University, 2025) Skora, Konstantin Maximilian; Marc Goergen; https://ror.org/02jjdwm75
This study examines private equity TRANSACTIONS. Specifically, it focuses on the strategies, measures, policies, and initiatives (ACTIONS) initiated by private equity fund managers (GPs) to achieve MULTIPLE EXPANSION, or the sale of a PORTFOLIO COMPANY at a higher EBITDA MULTIPLE than that at which it was purchased. MULTIPLE EXPANSION is one of the three components of VALUE CREATION, defined as the difference in EQUITY VALUE between the ENTRY and EXIT of a PORTFOLIO COMPANY.
The study situates this concept within the broader context of MULTIPLE-BASED VALUATION, the predominant valuation method used in the private equity industry. Changes in EQUITY VALUE between ENTRY and EXIT can be mathematically attributed to three sources: changes in EBITDA (EBITDA GROWTH), changes in the EBITDA MULTIPLE (MULTIPLE EXPANSION), and changes in NET DEBT (DELEVERAGE). While the academic literature has extensively explored EBITDA GROWTH and DELEVERAGE as outcomes of ACTIONS initiated by GPs, little is known about deliberate ACTIONS aimed at securing MULTIPLE EXPANSION.
This study aims to fill this gap by demonstrating the relevance of MULTIPLE EXPANSION as a significant aspect and inherent value-altering factor of VALUE CREATION actively targeted by GPs. Using a proprietary deal-level dataset, several statistical tests and regression analyses are conducted to find evidence to support the hypotheses that each of LATE-STAGE EXPANSION CAPEX, LATE-STAGE R&D, STRATEGIC REFOCUS, and ADD-ON acquisitions have a significant positive effect on MULTIPLE EXPANSION.
The evidence supports both LATE-STAGE EXPANSION CAPEX and ADD-ON acquisitions. For LATE-STAGE R&D and STRATEGIC REFOCUS, the study finds a significant positive effect on MULTIPLE EXPANSION, if the interaction term of both variables is examined.
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