Speaking at the Brandfest marketing industry conference in Hungary, Bob Willott, a former special professor at the University of Nottingham Business School, said private equity investors "want too much too soon".
Willott argued that private equity investment would be much more valuable if it was not strongly influenced by factors that fuel a short-term perspective.
He said: "The single most appealing feature of remaining independent and private is the ability of the management to be in control of its own destiny; something that neither a trade sale nor an IPO can offer.
"Yet by setting short-term exit horizons that almost invariably deliver ownership to someone else, private equity investors also deny owners the control over their destiny that many could value."
The criticism coincides with the publication of a special report by Marketing Services Financial Intelligence, edited by Willott, which examined 17 private equity investments in the industry since 1990.
According to the table, the biggest investment in the last 17 years has been in digital group AKQA, which received £87.5m worth of investment from General Atlantic Partners in 2007.
Other marketing services groups to receive a significant injection of funds from private equity investors in the recent past include The Engine Group, parent company to advertising agency WCRS, with £8m worth of investment this year.
The investments in AKQA and The Engine Group have yet to be realised by their investors, but the report said of others since 1990: "Typically the private equity investors succeeded in at least doubling their money within an average of about three years before disappearing into the night weighed down by the heavy burden of their swag bags."
One such example of this in the report was market research group Mori, which received £21m worth of investment from ISIS Equity Partners in 2004. Just one year later, ISIS made a gain of £20.4m on its investment.
The report claims that the current tax regime encourages a short-term view, because it requires investments made through a venture capital trust to be held for only five years to avoid paying back the upfront tax benefits.
It said: "Perhaps a regime that allowed individuals to enjoy only half of the potential tax benefits if shares were held for four years and for the full benefits to be earned only after eight years would help to calm the rush to realise."