The author shows that advisory boards in technology-based startups have seven different roles and functions: control, advice, networking, signalling, capital provision, co-management, coordination. It is shown that venture capital investors try to influence the importance of these roles in favour of control, coordination and co-management. Contrary to this, the satisfaction of founders as well as advisory board members increases with a higher importance of advice, networking and signalling. This analysis provides both qualitative and quantitative empirical data on the usage of those boards in practice.

Literature Review of Research on Governing Boards.- Roles of Governing Boards Explained through Agency Theory, Resource Dependency Theory, Stewardship Theory, Stakeholder Theory, Institutional Theory and Managerial Hegemony.- Exploring Roles Using Qualitative and Quantitative Methods.- Recommendations How to Use Advisory Boards in Practice.

Eric Weber co-founded SpinLab - The HHL Accelerator, a program that supports technology-based entrepreneurs in cooperation with HHL Leipzig Graduate School of Management, where he worked as research associate and startup coach and dealt with the field of entrepreneurship from both a practical and theoretical perspective.