Jeremy C. Short

University of North Texas | UNT · Department of Management

We investigate how entrepreneurs communicate with crowdfunding backers during the onset of a societal crisis via a content analysis of campaigns active during the COVID-19 pandemic and a vignette experiment. While effective communication with stakeholders is critical for acquiring resources during societal crises, little is known about what communi...

Drawing from expectancy violation theory, we investigate how entrepreneurs' language-based expressions of their political ideology influence the performance of their crowdfunding campaigns. We argue that crowdfunding funders expect campaigns to be apolitical, suggesting that entrepreneurs' expressing their political ideologies-regardless of the spe...

Social entrepreneurship continues to grow as an impactful phenomenon in the world and as a rich stream of research. Given this exciting growth, there is value in proactively exploring how social entrepreneurship scholarship can thrive and ‘seize the moment’ as it matures. This special issue solicited papers at the intersection of strategy and socia...

Humility is a concept grounded in a self-view that something greater than oneself exists. A multitude of disciplines to date have sought to understand how humility impacts leaders, as well as the individuals, teams, and organizations they lead. Despite overlapping research questions, methodologies, and empirical contexts, studies examining leader h...

Crowdfunded microfinance provides financial resources to impoverished entrepreneurs across the globe based on online appeals describing the entrepreneur’s values and venture potential and is considered a key player in the ethical finance movement. Despite knowledge that the content of the appeals impacts funding success, little is known regarding t...

Drawing from language expectancy theory and political psychology research, we investigate how entrepreneurs’ language-based expressions of their political ideology influences the performance of their crowdfunding campaigns. Since crowdfunding is considered a politically neutral platform by funders, we suggest that entrepreneurs’ expressing more ext...

There is increasing pressure for new ventures to engage in social initiatives. Yet, little is known about the new venture team dynamics that might lead entrepreneurs to commit to social engagement. Using a multinational sample of 5393 new ventures drawn from the Entrepreneurship Database Program, we use social role theory to hypothesize how foundin...

Tattoos reflect an increasingly popular form of creative self-expression and there is an increased prevalence of tattoos among entrepreneurs engaging in crowdfunding. As such, our study is the first to explore how visible displays of tattoos within crowdfunding campaigns relate to campaign performance. Using a creativity perspective, we examine how...

Catastrophic events challenge the resilience of society and require entrepreneurs to act proactively. Government COVID-19 responses forced thousands of businesses to close, resulting in a staggering loss of revenue for small businesses. Many small business entrepreneurs turned to crowdfunding to make public funding appeals. Through the lens of the...

Entrepreneurship scholars argue that effective storytelling is critical to the fundraising process, yet scholars rarely examine how the inclusion of core story elements in resource appeals such as characters, plot, or setting impacts fundraising effectiveness. Drawing from narrative theory and research on narrative analysis, we examine how the incl...

Role theories examine how individual behavior is shaped by prevailing social roles and provide insights into how behavior is perceived by others in light of such roles. Current movements for police reform as well as the landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court concerning the employment rights of LGBTQIA individuals have brought conversations con...

We outline the promise of topic modeling as a tool to build knowledge in social entrepreneurship surrounding the role gender plays in prosocial crowdfunding. By leveraging a sample of 340,956 prosocial microfinance campaigns drawn from Kiva, we examine how distinctiveness from the prototypical narrative in men's and women's campaigns relates to cro...

How does media impact institutional entrepreneurs and their ability to create change? We draw from research on social movements and media frames to examine the paradox that media-informed discursive opportunities pose for institutional entrepreneurs engaged in efforts to transform or create social institutions. Through content analysis of 8473 news...

As ventures around the world begin to resume operations as the COVID-19 pandemic eases, entrepreneurs face new complexities and challenges especially among crowdfunding efforts. In this paper, we offer research-based insights focused on the three stages in a post-crisis recovery (i.e., business resumption, crisis impact analysis, and future evaluat...

Crowdfunded microfinance research has routinely examined how campaign characteristics drive funding to crowdfunding campaigns but has neglected to examine the critical role of the microfinance institution (MFI). We leverage signaling theory to contend that entrepreneurs’ MFI affiliation is a salient third-party signal that shapes the performance of...

Research in entrepreneurship is increasingly exploring how archetypes, taxonomies, typologies, and configurations can help scholars understand complex entrepreneurial phenomena. We illustrate the potential for set-theoretic methods to inform this literature by offering best practices regarding how qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) can be used...

Rewards based crowdfunding (where individuals provide funding for a campaign in exchange for a pre-specified reward) represents one of the largest forms of crowdfunding to date. While an emerging stream of research examines how the rhetoric used in crowdfunding campaigns impacts funding success, a number of studies examining language used in crowdf...

Many franchisors seek to enlist military veterans as franchisees because veterans’ military training and experience help them act entrepreneurially without straying outside a franchise's business model. We examine whether efforts to recruit veterans alter the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation (EO) rhetoric in franchisee recruitment m...

Drawing from clinical and organizational narcissism research, we develop a novel measure of narcissistic rhetoric, investigating its prevalence in a sample of 1863 crowdfunding campaigns. An experiment using 1800 observations further validates our measure and confirms our hypothesized inverted-U relationship between narcissistic rhetoric and crowdf...

Research Summary Strategic entrepreneurship research has sought to understand how firms’ entrepreneurial behaviors and decision making influence firm performance. This research generally has treated entrepreneurial orientation (EO) as consisting of dimensions that independently influence firm performance. This approach conflicts with conceptual and...

We extend the entrepreneurship literature to include positive psychological capital-an individual or organization's level of psychological resources consisting of hope, optimism, resilience , and confidence-as a salient signal in crowdfunding. We draw from the costless signaling literature to argue that positive psychological capital language usage...

Computer-aided text analysis (CATA) offers great promise for scholars who aspire to capture the beliefs, cognitions, and emotions of individuals as reflected in their narratives and written texts. We review advancements in the use of CATA in organizational studies and highlight the increased momentum towards incorporating rigor when using CATA. We...

More than a decade ago, scholars formally conceptualized the potential synergy between leadership and entrepreneurship scholarship. Our work highlights research accomplishments occurring at the interface of these two intellectual areas as well as identifying untapped possibilities for continued research. We highlight how recent efforts have witness...

Managers need to think creatively about ways to improve organizational performance. We explore one such tool. Popular business books that offer unique takes on important topics can serve as an effective tool to engage workers and lead them to new understandings. In particular, we discuss the key insights for organizations offered by ten classic and...

This study draws upon the elaboration likelihood model of persuasion (ELM) to develop and test a model of persuasive influence in crowdfunding. To test our hypothesized relationships, we drew upon a sample of 383 ventures taken directly from Kickstarter, coupled with a decision experiment conducted in a simulated crowdfunding context. Results sugge...

The explosion of crowdfunding within entrepreneurial circles is attracting increased academic interest in the nature of crowdfunding, its antecedents, and its consequences. In an effort to help researchers concentrate their inquiry on the most promising questions and theories involving crowdfunding, we surveyed key thought leaders within the entrep...

Crowdfunding is a rapidly growing phenomenon wherein entrepreneurs seek funding for their entrepreneurial activities from a potentially large audience of interested individuals. Crowdfunding has exploded in popularity over the last decade and now accounts for tens of billions of dollars annually. But despite the importance and growth of crowdfundin...

Identifying causal relationships is central to research in entrepreneurship and small business. The rigorous application of quantitative research design and methods can build confidence in the causality of uncovered relationships. However, recent studies highlight methodological weaknesses that threaten confidence in the causality of these relation...

Social contagion research suggests that individual decision making is shaped by collective, social processes. We extend the entrepreneurial optimism literature by arguing that collective optimism—the shared, positive expectations about future outcomes—is salient to key entrepreneurial outcomes. We test our position by examining how fluctuations in...

Drawing from a framework highlighting how family influence is reflected in organizational identity, we present archival and content analytic adaptations for three key factors signifying alignment between family and organizational identities: family visibility, transgenerational sustainability, and family self-enhancement. We validate these measures...

Computer-aided text analysis (CATA) is a form of content analysis that enables the measurement of constructs by processing text into quantitative data based on the frequency of words. CATA has been proposed as a useful measurement approach with the potential to lead to important theoretical advancements. Ironically, while CATA has been offered to o...

Oscar Wilde once quipped, ‘Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.’ Whilst business scholars have challenged this premise, debate rages concerning what elements are most worth knowing. Specifically, the value of rigorous academic research is often weighed agains...

This study investigates the roles of the regulative, normative, and cognitive institutional pillars as perceived obstacles and facilitators of internationalization within an integrated region. Integrated regions involve efforts to create institutional similarities among member nations and encourage intra-regional trade. These efforts make integrate...

Charismatic rhetoric represents an important tool for leaders to articulate their respective visions. However, much of the research to date on this construct has yet to consider how the eight separate dimensions of charismatic rhetoric may be used in conjunction with one another to form distinctive profiles of charismatic leadership influence. Thus...

The Silences of the Archives, the Reknown of the Story. The Martin Guerre affair has been told many times since Jean de Coras and Guillaume Lesueur published their stories in 1561. It is in many ways a perfect intrigue with uncanny resemblance, persuasive deception and a surprizing end when the two Martin stood face to face, memory to memory, befor...

Language conveying positive psychological capital reflects optimism, hope, resilience, and confidence. Use of this language in organizational narratives has been linked to key organizational outcomes such as firm performance. Drawing from positive organizational behavior and signaling theory literatures, we examine how language indicating positive...

Publication bias is the systematic suppression of research findings due to small magnitude, statistical insignificance, or contradiction of prior findings or theory. We review possible reasons why publication bias may exist in strategy research and examine empirical evidence regarding the influence of publication bias in the field. Overall, we conc...

Microloans garnered from crowdfunding provide an important source of financial capital for nascent entrepreneurs. Drawing on cognitive evaluation theory, we assess how linguistic cues known to affect underlying motivation can frame entrepreneurial narratives either as a business opportunity or as an opportunity to help others. We examine how this f...

Organizational ambidexterity refers to a firm’s ability to pursue both exploitation and exploration orientations. Despite research that suggests ambidexterity is a critical phenomenon in family firms, few studies directly examine the role of ambidexterity over time in family business. This study examines how family firm ambidexterity changes over t...

How entrepreneurs disclose the blemishes of a new venture to investors may be an indicator of relative riskiness and thus may predict how much funding a venture receives. Drawing from venture funding research, the authors propose that hardship rhetoric will have a curvilinear relationship with investment received by a venture. This hypothesis is su...

This study draws upon previous research on political institutions to examine country-level measures of innovative activity over a ten-year period within 24 developed nations. Investigating the relationship between political institutional structures and two types of innovative activity (i.e., basic and applied) reveals that political institutions ha...

While a great deal of research has investigated strategies for increasing job seekersí initial attraction to organizations, far less is known about how job seekers respond to recruitment activities after application submission. We draw from signaling, uncertainty reduction, and uncertainty management theories to develop a conceptual model of t...

Graphic novels have been increasingly incorporated into business communication forums. Despite potential benefits, little research has examined the merits of the graphic novel approach. In response, we engage in a two-study approach. Study 1 explores the potential of graphic novels to affect learning outcomes and finds that the graphic novel was re...

A series of Strategic Management Journal studies have debated the extent to which business-unit, corporate parent, and industry effects explain variance in firm performance. Despite evidence that the industry life cycle impacts competition and performance, the life cycle concept has yet to be incorporated into the firm vs. industry debate. Building...

Applying individual-level constructs to higher levels of analysis can be a fruitful practice in organizational research. Although this practice is beneficial in developing and testing theory, there are measurement and validation concerns that, if improperly addressed, may threaten the validity and utility of the research. This article illustrates h...

Applying individual-level constructs to higher levels of analysis can be a fruitful practice in organizational research. Although this practice is beneficial in developing and testing theory, there are measurement and validation concerns that, if improperly addressed, may threaten the validity and utility of the research. This article illustrates h...

Understanding how private family firms gauge performance is of great interest to family business scholars. Unfortunately, finding comparable data to understand differences in the performance of such firms is challenging. This study draws from the organizational identity literature to show how private family firms communicate different goals in publ...

A company is more likely to enjoy excellent organizational performance if its employees understand the importance of strategic management and are actively engaged in helping the company pursue its strategies. Many employees view strategy as disconnected from their jobs, however, and getting them to embrace strategy can be challenging. Using a serie...

Market orientation refers to the collection, dissemination, and utilization of market information that promotes a sustainable competitive advantage. Despite the contribution of the market orientation construct to both the strategic management and marketing literatures, little attention has been devoted to exploring how market orientation relates to...

Despite the call for increased theoretical diversity in franchising research, the incorporation of organizational theory into this literature has been minimal. In response, we examine how aspects of organizational identity are represented in franchisee recruitment Web sites. We develop the concept of franchise branding to understand how franchisors...

Drawing on the organizational identity literature, this exploratory study examines the dual identities of award-winning social ventures recognized by FastCompany magazine and the Skoll Foundation. Specifically, we use computer-assisted content analysis to explore identities as reflected in organizational mission statements. Our findings demonstrate...

For decades, most franchising research leveraged one of three theoretical milestones - resource scarcity, agency theory, and plural form symbiosis - to answer questions about why, where, and how often firms use franchising. Today's franchising researchers are leveraging new theories, investigating under-examined aspects of franchising, and explorin...

We report the results of a survey of key thought leaders within the entrepreneurship field centered on the relationship between franchising and entrepreneurship. Specifically, we asked members of the Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice editorial board whether they consider franchisors to be entrepreneurs, whether they consider franchisees to be en...

This manuscript develops the concept of organizational virtue orientation (OVO) and examines differences between family and non-family firms on the six organizational virtue dimensions of Integrity, Empathy, Warmth, Courage, Conscientiousness, and Zeal. Using content analysis of shareholder letters from S&P 500 companies, our analyses find that the...

Although job seekers’ organizational image perceptions can influence attraction to recruiting organizations, little is known about how these perceptions are formed or modified. To address this research gap, the authors drew from research in social cognition theory and demonstrated that recruitment Web site characteristics influenced the development...

Much has been written about the review process, and many management scholars believe that they possess a thorough understanding of how journal submissions are vetted. The review process contains important and sometimes ugly truths, however, that are known by just a few participants. Specifically, editors observe — and endure — a variety of dysfunct...

Management fads present executives with an interesting paradox. With the benefit of hindsight, many fads appear silly. Yet, it seems that as each management fad falls out of favor, a new fad emerges and gains legions of devoted followers. Our short graphic novel, The Good, The Fad, And The Ugly, illustrates the difficulty of separating fads from fa...

Corporate diversification, a major strategic management research topic, has been influenced significantly by resource-based theory. In this review, the authors make two main contributions to this literature. First, they discuss the historical development of corporate diversification research employing the resource-based theory perspective and relat...

One of the most critical challenges faced by management scholars is how to integrate micro and macro research methods and theories. This article introduces a special issue of the Journal of Management addressing this integration challenge. First, the authors describe the nature of the micro—macro divide and its challenge for the field of management...

Franchising is a popular and multifaceted business arrangement that has attracted considerable research attention. Past inquiry has focused on franchising’s antecedents, consequences, and factors that moderate these relationships. The authors review recent progress within franchising research and identify gaps in the literature. They also describe...

Understanding the nature of family representation in public firms has been an important topic for entrepreneurship research. Because CEO compensation is a key tool that boards use to align the interests of shareholders and managers, researchers have taken steps toward understanding how family representation affects CEO compensation. Prior research...

Construct validity continues to pose challenges in the organizational sciences. To capture difficult-to-measure constructs of interest, researchers have often relied on content analysis. One content analysis technique, computer-aided text analysis (CATA), is particularly attractive because of the ability to process large samples with high speeds an...

Opportunity is a central concept within the entrepreneurship field, and there is now a critical mass of literature centered on the concept. The authors seek to make two main contributions to this literature. First, we provide a detailed review of research on the opportunity concept and the processes surrounding it, highlighting extant insights and...

Entrepreneurship is a relatively young field; nonetheless, the research in this domain has been growing at an impressive rate in recent decades. As is commonly the case with emerging fields, entrepreneurship research currently faces a number of opportunities and challenges. Overall, entrepreneurship has an opportunity to establish itself as a field...

The graphic novel provides an attractive medium to communicate business concepts with a number of characteristics that may aid student learning in a more effective manner than traditional textbooks. The authors provide an overview of the graphic novel format and use McLuhan’s research on “hot” versus “cool” media as a theoretical base that highligh...

Social entrepreneurship has been a topic of academic inquiry for nearly 20 years, yet relatively little scholarly output has appeared in mainstream management and entrepreneurship journals. Our review of this literature reveals that conceptual articles outnumber empirical studies, and empirical efforts often lack formal hypotheses and rigorous meth...

Social entrepreneurship (SE) is defined as a process of social value creation in which resources are combined in new ways to meet social needs, stimulate social change, or create new organizations. This paper shows that 1) diversity in SE construct measurement is presently lacking, 2) the SE literature is characterized by social value creation as a...

Our study extends a long-running debate into the domain of entrepreneurship by examining firm and industry effects on the performance of new ventures. We examine to what extent firm and industry levels explain sales, sales growth, and survival among 7,256 young Swedish firms over a five-year period, and compare these findings to a sample of 12,692...

There is considerable disagreement about whether family firm characteristics hinder or support entrepreneurial activities. This article highlights the existence of an entrepreneurial orientation in family firms, and it examines differences between family and nonfamily firms on the entrepreneurial orientation dimensions of autonomy, competitive aggr...

Organizational configurations are sets of firms that are similar in terms of important characteristics. This article is intended to help close three gaps in the literature on organizational configurations. First, the authors propose clear definitions that may facilitate progress in the literature. Second, they provide the first major review since 1...

Mission Statements are an increasingly important component for accreditation of universities and colleges of business. Thus, understanding similarities and differences in the content of mission statements of business schools is especially timely. To provide insights concerning the use of missions in colleges of business, we analyzed the content of...