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Narcissistic Rhetoric and Crowdfunding Performance: A Social Role Theory Perspective
Abstract
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 crowdfunding performance. Leveraging social role theory, we explore sex, sexual orientation, and race as potential moderators of this relationship. Moderation tests reveal LGBTQ entrepreneurs generally yield greater performance when using narcissistic rhetoric than heterosexuals while racial minorities underperform Caucasians using narcissistic rhetoric. Our findings suggest successful crowdfunding campaigns must balance narcissistic rhetoric with entrepreneurs’ perceived social roles.
... Finally, a third contribution is that this study adds nuances to the racial categorization by examining three racial categorieswhite, African American and Asian. Most prior CF research compared whites only to people of color as an aggregate (Anglin et al., 2018(Anglin et al., , 2022Cumming et al., 2019;Venturelli et al., 2020). By treating diverse ethnic minority groups homogenously, prior research has ignored the varied socioeconomic circumstances that each group lives under (Hilger, 2016). ...
... Table 1 summarizes the ethnic minority CF literature. Extant research has mostly measured race as a dichotomized variable, comparing Caucasians with either "people of color" (Anglin et al., 2018(Anglin et al., , 2022Cumming et al., 2019;Venturelli et al., 2020) or "African American" (Younkin and Kuppuswamy, 2019). Furthermore, those studies' moderators are micro-level variables that either denote project entrepreneurs' gender group (Anglin et al., 2022;Venturelli et al., 2020), age group (Cumming et al., 2019), sexual orientation (Anglin et al., 2018) or project-level narrative characteristics (Anglin et al., 2018). ...
... Extant research has mostly measured race as a dichotomized variable, comparing Caucasians with either "people of color" (Anglin et al., 2018(Anglin et al., , 2022Cumming et al., 2019;Venturelli et al., 2020) or "African American" (Younkin and Kuppuswamy, 2019). Furthermore, those studies' moderators are micro-level variables that either denote project entrepreneurs' gender group (Anglin et al., 2022;Venturelli et al., 2020), age group (Cumming et al., 2019), sexual orientation (Anglin et al., 2018) or project-level narrative characteristics (Anglin et al., 2018). Absent from ethnic minority CF research are analyses of the effects of macro-level variables on ethnic minority entrepreneurs' CF performance. ...
Purpose
Prior research treated entrepreneurs’ actions as purely opportunistic and voluntary, excluding social and economic systems’ influence on entrepreneurial actions. However, the applications of communication strategies, project management and social network are anchored in socioeconomic systems in which the entrepreneurs are rooted. To address the gap, this study aims to articulate – through the prism of institutional theory – how restaurant crowdfunding (CF) success is affected by socioeconomic prosperity according to entrepreneurs’ race and geographic area.
Design/methodology/approach
The current study analyzed 2,008 restaurant CF projects launched in the USA through the Kickstarter platform from 2010 to 2020. By conducting one-way analysis of variance and multilevel mixed-effect logistic regression models, this study examined the relative socioeconomic prosperity and CF success according to the race of the restaurant entrepreneurs. The study also examined how socioeconomic prosperity affected CF success and how that relationship was moderated by the entrepreneurs’ level of restaurant experience.
Findings
This study finds that relative socioeconomic prosperity and CF success does differ according to race. Also in the CF context, lower socioeconomic prosperity does impede fundraising success. While the level of restaurant experience significantly increased an entrepreneur’s CF success, the impact was not so significant as to overcome the impact of socioeconomic prosperity.
Research limitations/implications
Drawing on institutional theory, this study examines the impact of socioeconomic prosperity on CF project outcomes. By uncovering the significant impact of socioeconomic systems on CF success, this study fills the research gap. Previous studies have generally treated minority entrepreneurs as an aggregated form. The authors’ results extend the literature by including major ethnic groups – whites, African Americans and Asians.
Practical implications
The findings of the current study show restaurant entrepreneurs can raise the likelihood of CF success by doing two things: first, accumulate experience in the restaurant industry; second, use their CF websites to highlight testimonials about the value of that experience. Federal, state and local governments can institute policies to help improve racial minorities’ socioeconomic conditions and thereby promote startups’ fundraising success.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is one of the first to examine unexplored institutional effect on CF outcomes. It examines how and why socioeconomic factors affect minority entrepreneurs’ funding success. It compares the prosperity and CF success of white, African American and Asian entrepreneurs.
... Different variables have been developed to measure the same concept. For example, 'perceived narcissism' is conceptualized with different measurements as the 'number of self-mentions counting any mentions of the entrepreneur's name' (Gafni et al., 2019), 'I-pronouns-ratio' (Bollaert et al., 2019), and 'narcissistic rhetoric using the narcissistic personality inventory' (Anglin, Wolfe et al., 2018). Also, different effects regarding funding performance have been reported between such conceptually similar cues. ...
... For example, using moderate levels of 'narcissistic rhetoric' can influence funding decisions by making entrepreneurs appear charismatic and confident. Such perceived qualities help entrepreneurs persuade backers (Anglin, Wolfe et al., 2018). Also, the explicit use of sustainability-related words makes the campaign more appealing to backers who identify with the framing (Defazio et al., 2021). ...
... Thus, we counted together all identically reported effects on funding performance for each cue regarding each sub-category (Friedrich, 2016;Light & Smith, 1971). For example, Anglin, Wolfe et al. (2018) reported that the cue 'narcissistic rhetoric' has an inverted U-shape effect on three funding performance variables. Bollaert et al. (2019) reported that the cue 'I-pronouns-ratio' and 'High-I-pronouns-ratio' has a significant negative effect on the same three funding performance variables. ...
Background: Reward-based crowdfunding (RBCF) is an established funding mechanism for entrepreneurs, in which they present their ideas through campaign presentations to persuade backers. Compared to investors, who focus more on the merits of the information presented, crowdfunding backers pay attention to cues such as the entrepreneurs’ characteristics and the appeal of the campaign. Accordingly, researchers investigated cues, i.e., snippets of information embedded within different communication modalities that facilitate the interpretation of the campaign and entrepreneur. Thus, knowledge of how cues affect decision-making and funding performance has become important for researchers and practitioners. However, current research often investigated cues in isolation that are fragmented across literature and does not provide a straightforward understanding of how cues embedded in campaign presentations affect funding performance .
Method: This review synthesizes past RBCF literature to provide a comprehensive concept-centric categorization of how cues affect funding performance.
Results: The review analyzed 71 articles and identified three main research topics, namely “communication strategies”, “perceived entrepreneurs' characteristics”, and “appeal to emotions”. The review developed 14 corresponding concept-centric sub-categories of cues and reported their effects on funding performance (significant negative, non-significant, significant positive, inverted U-shaped). Vote- counting shows that some sub-categories tend to have overall positive or negative effects, with first indications of an often-neglected inverted U-shape effect. Yet, the effect’s direction is not straightforward for all sub-categories. Also, further research is necessary to explore what specific combinations of cues moderate, complement, or substitute for each other’s effects, including non-linear assumptions. Also, there is room to investigate fruitful, not yet analyzed, cues and theoretical lenses.
Conclusion: This review contributes to the RBCF literature by providing detailed insights into the effects of cues embedded within the campaign presentation on funding performance. Such a better understanding can benefit all involved parties.
... Although some studies have investigated different rhetorical and substantive signals as antecedents of crowdfunding success, they have focused mainly on the linear and cross-sectional analyses of a limited set of signals with mixed results (Allison et al., 2017;Anglin et al., 2018;Cappa et al., 2021;Moradi & Badrinarayanan, 2021;Patel et al., 2021;Steigenberger & Wilhelm, 2018;Tajvarpour & Pujari, 2022;Zhou et al., 2018). In addition, despite calls from researchers (e.g., Kim et al., 2020;Kuppuswamy & Bayus, 2017;Wang et al., 2021), research has not examined the direct and interactive effects of these signals across the different phases of crowdsourcing campaigns. ...
... The crowdfunding literature suggests that backers in early versus later stages vary in their information needs and pay attention to different campaign characteristics in forming their funding decisions (Agrawal et al., 2014;Kuppuswamy & Bayus, 2017). Early backers disproportionately tend to be "friends and family" of project creators (Agrawal et al., 2014), casual backers with low expertise (Ahsan et al., 2018;Anglin et al., 2018), and product enthusiasts who seek to capitalize on special rewards offered for early backers (Marelli & Ordanini, 2016;Sewaid et al., 2021). As these backers are more likely to make funding decisions based on subjective impressions , both emotional and cognitive appeals (Allison et al., 2017;Xiang et al., 2019) are expected to exert greater influence on early backers as compared to more sophisticated later backers. ...
... In addition, research on signaling theory in the context of new ventures notes that signals vary in effectiveness based on their timing, such that some signals are more effective in early versus later stages of the venture (Bafera & Kleinert, 2022). In particular, this stream suggests that low-cost signals decrease in informative value or become less effective in later versus earlier stages of new ventures due to decreasing information asymmetries, differences in signals sought by later backers, and shifts in importance from informational to reputational signals (Anglin et al., 2018;Bafera & Kleinert, 2022). Extending these theoretical arguments, we expect a diminishing influence on funding formation from low-cost rhetorical signals, such as emotional and cognitive tone (Steigenberger & Wilhelm, 2018), across early versus later backers. ...
As crowdfunding success relies heavily on designing campaigns that attempt to influence potential backers within a fixed time frame, this study leverages signaling theory to explore the time-varying direct and interactive effects of rhetorical (i.e., emotional tone, cognitive tone, communal language style, and linguistic style match) and substantive (i.e., backer support) signals employed in project descriptions on funding formation. Using linguistic inquiry and word count (LIWC) and functional data analysis (FDA), we analyze data on 1245 projects from a rewards-based crowdfunding platform (Kickstarter) and demonstrate that (a) the four rhetorical signals are positively related to funding formation, (b) emotional and cognitive tone exert stronger effects in early phases of projects, whereas linguistic style match and communal language style exert stronger effects in later phases, and (c) the dynamic effects of rhetorical signals on funding formation are greater when the number of backers increases. We conclude with implications for crowdfunding research and insights for improving campaign success.
... For example, Anglin et al. (2018a) showed that perceptions of positive psychological capital rhetoric in the form of hope, optimism, resilience, and confidence have a positive effect on crowdfunding success. Perceptions of narcissistic rhetoric have also been shown to be a salient factor in crowdfunding success (Anglin et al., 2018b). Moreover, an entrepreneur's perceived passion in crowdfunding campaigns impacts success both directly from the backers via contributions and indirectly as backers share campaign information with their social network . ...
... In the high-noise context of crowdfunding, research has documented that costless language-based signals transmit information that contributes to funding success (Colombo, 2021). One such signal, campaign rhetoric, is relied upon by potential backers to guide their contribution decisions (Anglin et al., 2018b). When rhetoric signals the unobservable characteristics of need, reward quality, or deliverability it will be viewed positively and is likely to contribute to increased funding. ...
... For example, signals perceived via risk rhetoric were recently found to be negatively associated with overall campaign success while reward rhetoric was positively associated (Tajvarpour and Pujari, 2022). Narcissistic rhetoric was shown to be helpful to crowdfunding at low levels but harmful at high levels (Anglin et al., 2018b). Finally, Calic et al. (2021) used signaling theory to explain how Machiavellian rhetoric might impact crowdfunding outcomes. ...
Purpose-The purpose of this study is to examine how crowdfunding backer perceptions of market orientation and foreignness impact crowdfunding performance in emerging economies. Design/methodology/approach-Using content analysis software, the authors analyzed 756 Kickstarter campaign narratives from the emerging economies of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa for the period between 2009 and 2019. Findings-The authors' results show that behavioral market orientation signals are positively related to amounts raised while decision criteria signals are negatively related. The authors also find that foreign entrepreneur status interacts with the two market orientations to impact funding amounts. Practical implications-When creating crowdfunding campaigns in emerging economies, domestic entrepreneurs should use high levels of behavioral market orientation rhetoric but low levels of decision criteria rhetoric within their campaign narratives. Originality/value-This study unpacks the components of market orientation and examines their positive and negative effects on crowdfunding success in the context of emerging economies.
... Signaling theory Crowdfunding (Kickstarter) Anglin et al., 2018b Narcissist rhetoric Social role theory Crowdfunding (Kickstarter) Moss et al., 2018 Linguistic emphasis on social and economic goals Theory on category membership and spanning Crowdfunding (Kiva) Allison et al., 2017 Linguistic cues that indicate the venture being a personal dream, group identification with potential funders, a positive tones. ...
... Language that weakens the funding need (e.g., accomplishment rhetoric, as noted by Allison et al., 2013, andAnglin, 2019) or contradicts the main motivation of potential funders (e.g., emphasizing economic gains for prosocial funders, as noted by Allison et al., 2014) hurts funding. Language that uses narcissistic rhetoric can also influence funding success (Anglin et al., 2018b). Finally, researchers found that certain communication styles can influence funding, such as the use of precise (Allison et al., 2013;Short and Anglin, 2019), concrete, or interactive language (Parhankangas and Renko, 2017). ...
... These packages have been frequently used in management and entrepreneurship 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 literatures (Parhankangas and Renko, 2017;Srivastava et al., 2018). Specifically, we controlled for variables indicating entrepreneur or venture attributes such as positive psychological capital, intrinsic motivation cues (language on human interests and distinctiveness), and extrinsic motivation cues (language on profit and risk-taking) (Anglin et al., 2018b;Allison et al., 2014;Short et al., 2010;Zachary et al., 2011). Further, we controlled for narrative styles including emotional valence (for narrative tones), concreteness, preciseness, interactivity, future-focus, personal style, numerical terms, accomplishment rhetoric, and narcissist rhetoric (Anglin et al., 2018a;Anglin et al., 2018b;Allison et al., 2013Allison et al., , 2017Parhankangas and Renko, 2017;Di Pietro et al., 2020). ...
Linguistic attributes in entrepreneurs' funding campaign descriptions play an important role in attracting resources. Going beyond examining the effect of individual linguistic attributes, this study takes a portfolio approach by viewing a narrative as a portfolio or collection of linguistic attributes. Specifically, we posit a narrative as a portfolio of “speech acts” and examine the combined effects of select speech acts based on their variation within a narrative. Speech acts are actions that a communicator performs with their words, such as making an assertion, establishing a commitment, expressing feelings, and directing listeners to evoke certain behaviors. Drawing on the stimuli variation perspective and speech acts theory, we examine how the diversity of and changes in “speech acts” in a narrative can influence funding outcomes. Using a sample of 28,000 crowdfunding campaigns and a supervised machine-learning approach, we find that entrepreneurs who adopt a variety of speech acts and frequently change from one speech act to another in a narrative are more likely to achieve funding success. Results also support inverted U-shaped relationships of individual speech acts with funding success. This study contributes to both the entrepreneurial narratives and resource acquisition literatures.
... As a result, texts such as emails, speeches, or annual reports offer a rich source of data to which CATA techniques can be applied (e.g., Anglin, Reid, Short, Zachary, & Rutherford, 2017;Baur et al., 2016). Scholars have subsequently leveraged such texts to explore a wide variety of constructs such as modesty (Ridge & Ingram, 2017), authenticity (Kovács, Carroll, & Lehman, 2013), and narcissism (Anglin, Wolfe, Short, McKenny, & Pidduck, 2018b). CATA helps overcome the limitations of traditional measurement methods in several ways. ...
... This facilitates expert judgment regarding whether the words, if used in the selected texts, would be more often than not indicative of the construct being measured. The need for familiarity in these three areas often makes members of the research team valuable judges because the research process requires researchers to become very familiar in these three areas (e.g., Anglin et al., 2018b). Further, the time demands on word list judges can be considerable, which may make external judges less willing to help or less reliable than authors who have a vested interest in the validity and reliability of their measures. ...
... For constructs with multiple dimensions, researchers should also examine the factor structure of the construct (Short et al., 2010). Because multidimensional constructs consist of one dictionary per dimension, it is important to understand how the DBCTA scores for these dimensions covary (Anglin et al., 2018b;Brigham, Lumpkin, Payne, & Zachary, 2014). For example, narcissism is a seven-dimensional construct reflective of one underlying personality characteristic, suggesting that the dictionary scores for the dimensions should load on one factor (Anglin et al., 2018b;Raskin & Terry, 1988). ...
... Organizational LGBTQ+ communities consist of actors with diverse social identities (i.e., sexual identity, gender, race/ethnicity, and class background), marked by heterogeneous experiences across community spaces (Martos et al., 2015). Management literature has analyzed the relationship between social networks and organizational LGBTQ+ communities from different theoretical perspectives, including employee turnover (Lazer & Friedman, 2007), public opinion (Bell et al., 2011;Colgan & McKearney, 2012), career development (Kaplan, 2014;Nam Cam Trau & Härtel, 2004), stigmatization (Alexandra Beauregard et al., 2018;Hudson, 2008;Kulik et al., 2008;Ragins, 2008), social identity (Clair et al., 2005;Paisley & Tayar, 2016;Rowley & Moldoveanu, 2003), institutional change (Creed et al., 2010;Seo & Creed, 2002), heteronormativity (Galloway, 2012), stakeholder theory (Briscoe et al., 2014), and social role theory (Anglin et al., 2018). As a result, several aspects of this relationship can be highlighted. ...
... Some personality traits such as proactivity, conscientiousness, emotional stability, nurturing, socialization, and education are deemed positive (Hwee Nga & Shamuganathan, 2010;Singh, 2019). Others, such as extraversion and narcissism, are ambiguous or may negatively affect their direct relationship with embeddedness and entrepreneurial endeavors (Anglin et al., 2018;Singh, 2019). In this sense, personality traits help entrepreneurs create social value via socialization, extraversion, and mastery (de Beer, 2018;Hwee Nga & Shamuganathan, 2010;Littunen, 2000;Rauch & Frese, 2014;Singh, 2019;˙I rengün & Arıkboga, 2015). ...
... Whereas personality is consistently seen as an antecedent to actor embeddedness and entrepreneurship, studies have also shown its validity as a moderator. From our selected sample, Anglin et al. (2018) show that LGBTQ+ entrepreneurs generally yield greater performance when using narcissistic rhetoric than heterosexuals. Given such moderator effect and the relatedness of personality traits to actor embeddedness and entrepreneurship, two scenarios may be argued. ...
Integrating the expanding organizational LGBTQ + communities’ literature on actor entrepreneurship, we advance a conceptual framework theoretically grounded in the concept of embeddedness. Specifically, we highlight the contextual antecedents that clarify how homophily and prominence in organizational LGBTQ + communities drive actor entrepreneurship. Our framework also illustrates the moderating role of actor attributes (i.e., personality traits), organizational environment, and the mediating role of resource acquisition in the actor embeddedness – entrepreneurship linkage.
... First, some words in the agentic value dictionary may be used in other dictionary-based measures to capture CEO displays. For example, words such as "able" and "accomplish," which are included in the agentic value display dictionary, have also been used to capture narcissistic rhetoric (Anglin et al. 2018). To alleviate the concern of overlapping dictionaries, we conducted a robustness test that accounts for dictionary overlap between the text-based measures in our models. ...
... Of the five components, we find that CEO relative agentic value display has the highest correlation with CEO extraversion (0.18), followed by CEO consciousness (0.09). In addition, we follow Anglin et al. (2018) by using text analysis to control for CEO narcissistic rhetoric during earnings calls (measured as the ratio of narcissisticrelated words to total words spoken by a CEO during earnings calls). Anglin et al. (2018) developed and validated a seven-component dictionary-based measure of narcissistic rhetoric, comprised of authority rhetoric (the degree to which individuals project themselves as leaders), superiority rhetoric (language indicative of being extraordinary), exhibitionism rhetoric (language indicative of showing off to attract attention), vanity rhetoric (language communicating excessive pride or admiration of one's self and abilities), self-sufficiency rhetoric (language indicating autonomy and individualistic action without external constraints), exploitativeness rhetoric (language used to deceive others in the pursuit of a desired goal), and entitlement rhetoric (language communicating a sense of deservingness over others). ...
... In addition, we follow Anglin et al. (2018) by using text analysis to control for CEO narcissistic rhetoric during earnings calls (measured as the ratio of narcissisticrelated words to total words spoken by a CEO during earnings calls). Anglin et al. (2018) developed and validated a seven-component dictionary-based measure of narcissistic rhetoric, comprised of authority rhetoric (the degree to which individuals project themselves as leaders), superiority rhetoric (language indicative of being extraordinary), exhibitionism rhetoric (language indicative of showing off to attract attention), vanity rhetoric (language communicating excessive pride or admiration of one's self and abilities), self-sufficiency rhetoric (language indicating autonomy and individualistic action without external constraints), exploitativeness rhetoric (language used to deceive others in the pursuit of a desired goal), and entitlement rhetoric (language communicating a sense of deservingness over others). ...
Activist shareholders face a challenging task in preemptively identifying executives who they perceive might destroy shareholder value—before harm is done. We develop a framework where activist shareholders resolve this problem by forming attributions about executives’ intentions based on their displays of agentic values, which reflect independence and control. For activist shareholders, a strong display of independence can evoke concerns that an executive will act without the regulation of shareholder input, and a strong display of control can create concerns an executive will engineer governance provisions to their own benefit. As such, we hypothesize that above-average agentic value displays by CEOs increase the likelihood firms are targeted by shareholder activists. Extending our theory, we argue the positive effect that agentic value displays have on attracting shareholder activism is stronger when CEOs permit higher spending on corporate and stakeholder investment, both of which can exacerbate shareholder harm when executed poorly. We also posit that activism campaigns driven by CEOs’ agentic value displays will largely come from activist shareholders seeking to exert their own control over agentic-speaking CEOs. Using data on shareholder activism campaigns at US-based companies from 2003–2018, we find support for our hypotheses. We discuss multiple theoretical implications for research on corporate governance, stakeholder management, and investor relations.
... Only recently have studies begun to investigate some specific male and female characteristics disclosed in crowdfunding campaigns (e.g., Anglin et al., 2018;Cowden et al., 2021;Davis et al., 2021). For instance, the use of narcissistic rhetoric in textual narratives (Anglin et al., 2018) and the facial expressions in images of anger, disgust, sadness, and happiness in images (Davis et al., 2021). ...
... Only recently have studies begun to investigate some specific male and female characteristics disclosed in crowdfunding campaigns (e.g., Anglin et al., 2018;Cowden et al., 2021;Davis et al., 2021). For instance, the use of narcissistic rhetoric in textual narratives (Anglin et al., 2018) and the facial expressions in images of anger, disgust, sadness, and happiness in images (Davis et al., 2021). Although these studies have partly adopted the views of social gender identities, roles, stereotypes, or expectations, they have paid scant attention to the association with feminist theory and without tracing hybrids of masculinity and femininity, limiting a deeper dialogue with female entrepreneurs' empowerment and liberation in the digital context of crowdfunding. ...
... Research on entrepreneurs' gender stereotypes suggests that perceived incongruity-female entrepreneurs who behave in masculine ways-may create roadblocks for female entrepreneurs in that those strong, incongruous behaviors may be considered overly assertive and negative (Balachandra et al., 2019;Eddleston et al., 2016;Gupta et al., 2009). Moreover, recent research on alternative crowdfunding supports this inference (e.g., Anglin et al., 2018;Cowden et al., 2021). For example, Anglin et al. (2018) focused on the language reflective of narcissistic characteristics in crowdfunding and demonstrated that displays of narcissism that paralleled expectations about males (e.g., self-sufficient, assertive, and dominant) in Western culture exhibited a curvilinear, inverted U-shaped relation with crowdfunding performance. ...
Plain English Summary
Does digitalization sufficiently empower female entrepreneurs? Evidence from examining the impacts of their online gender identities on crowdfunding performance. Drawing upon cyberfeminist theory with a socially constructed view of gender, this paper relies on a dataset of female entrepreneurs online in a crowdfunding domain to reexamine the extent of digitalization in their empowerment. Through an empirical investigation of how female entrepreneurs “doing” gender identity online affects crowdfunding performance, this study shows that the online displays of masculinity have an inverted U-shaped association with crowdfunding performance; femininity has no significant effect; and their hybrids—a masculine identity (i.e., high on masculinity and low on femininity)—are more advantageous than are feminine, androgynous, and undifferentiated identities. Our findings based on cyberfeminist theoretical analyses reveal that embracing masculinity is reproduced online in addressing women’s financial constraints, strongly demonstrating that the true potential of crowdfunding for female entrepreneurs’ empowerment is overestimated. This paper provides objective evidence for informing the debates on the digitalization potential for female entrepreneurs’ empowerment and sheds light on how to apply cyberfeminism in subsequent research. Female entrepreneurs can also use our findings to improve crowdfunding performance.
... The platform averages 2.72 billion visitors each day, and now offers Facebook users the ability to share live video content (Needleman, 2021). To date, researchers have explored the platform only to examine the antecedents of successful Facebook app developers (Fan et al., 2021) or gather secondary Facebook friend data as control variables for crowdfunding campaign studies (e.g., Anglin et al., 2018;Mollick, 2014;Skirnevskiy et al., 2017). ...
... Like Facebook, researchers have utilized Instagram only for supplemental data. For example, Anglin et al. (2018) used the presence of an Instagram profile as a proxy for narcissism. ...
... As an arena for global engagement, content creation-based online platform complementors are exposed to digital content from an array of diverse backgrounds that vary by race and gender. Recent entrepreneurship research has incorporated role theory to explain how individuals are subjected to prescriptive 'roles' (e.g., gender roles, race roles) that stereotype their behavioral expectations (e.g., Anglin et al., 2018Anglin et al., , 2022Chandler et al., 2022). For example, race impacts how a person perceives their status as the same or different from others in society (Fouad and Brown, 2000). ...
... Second, we extend the resource acquisition literature by providing an explanation as to why the 'female advantage' common across crowdfunding domains may be surprisingly undercut by displaying qualities that would appear consistent with women's gender roles such as the communal behaviors expected from religious individuals. Role congruity research in entrepreneurship has revealed that whether congruence or incongruence with gender stereotypical behavior is beneficial to women is highly contextual (e.g., Balachandra et al., 2019;Hmieleski & Sheppard, 2019), with crowdfunding research calling for further investigation into when the female advantage may hold or be diminished (e.g., Anglin et al., 2018b). Here, the communal nature of religious expression would suggest alignment with women's gender roles; yet, we show that religious expression may slow funding for women. ...
... For example, the occupational role of a manager is associated with expectations of competitive, assertive, and aggressive behaviors (Schein et al., 1996), while nurses are typically expected to be kind, gentle, helpful to others, and supportive (Cejka & Eagly, 1999). Role congruity theory has been broadly applied in studying how individuals are evaluated in a variety of scenarios: whether in terms of the appropriateness of their leadership behaviors (Wang et al., 2019), overall authenticity as leaders (Eagly, 2005;Gloor et al., 2020), consequences of unethical behavior at work (Mai et al., 2020), or assessing entrepreneurs' success in the context of resource acquisition (Abraham, 2019;Anglin et al., 2018bAnglin et al., , 2021. ...
... The role of an entrepreneur has become associated with a set of norms and expectations. Entrepreneurs are expected to be self-reliant and confident 'men of action' (Anglin et al., 2018b;Brattström & Wennberg, 2021). They are commonly conceived as individuals who thrive amongst ambiguity by exhibiting innovation and risk taking (Finkle, 2012) and behave in proactive, competitively aggressive, and autonomous ways reflective of an entrepreneurial orientation (Lumpkin & Dess, 1996). ...
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 the role of religious expression, which is common and consequential in socially-oriented contexts. We leverage role congruity theory to address a theoretical tension concerning the effects of religious expression on crowdfunded microfinance funding outcomes. Religious expression is associated with perceptions of trustworthiness, rule-following, and ethicality—qualities that would suggest an entrepreneur would likely avoid opportunist behavior and repay the loan. However, appeals to a higher power may be incongruent with the role of an entrepreneur to the extent that such expression communicates a lack of proactiveness and self-reliance. We use a two-study design to help resolve this tension. Our field study incorporating 253,130 loans from Kiva reveals that religious expression negatively influences funding, particularly for women. Our experiment using 1,795 individual loan assessments shows that the negative influence of religious expression is attenuated when individual lenders exhibit higher levels of religiosity. Post hoc analysis suggests campaigns can mitigate the negative impact of religious expression by being careful to also include aspects highlighting an entrepreneurial orientation. Overall, our work extends prior research suggesting that language tied to ethical or virtuous behaviors is generally not rewarded by lenders as using such language may make the applicant appear inconsistent with role of a stereotypical entrepreneur.
... The role of entrepreneurship aligns with gender and its stereotypical characteristics. Social entrepreneurship associates well with the role of women as they tend to show communal behaviour with care and empathy (Anglin et al. 2018). This supports the idea that women founders are more suitable for a social venture than a commercial project. ...
This paper aims to analyse the literature on social entrepreneur-ship and crowdfunding to summarise existing themes and highlight future directions for research. The extant literature on the topic is quite fragmented, therefore we seek to identify common and unifying themes and highlight recent research trends and corresponding gaps. The systematic literature review has been conducted using the Scopus database and an open-ended time frame. Based on our analysis, four main research themes can be identified in the literature: (1) the benefits of crowdfunding for social entrepreneurial ventures; (2) the determinants of crowd-funding success for social entrepreneurial ventures; (3) the contribution of social entrepreneurial ventures financed via crowdfunding to the economy and society; and (4) the challenges of crowdfunding platforms focused on the financing of social entrepreneurial ventures. This study provides a summary of the most used theoretical frameworks in the business and management literature on crowdfunding and social ventures and proposes a number of avenues for future research.
... These outcomes encourage firms to invest a large amount of their resources, which gives them the greatest return and improves crowdfunding performance [22]. Prior studies proposed that many firms invest in research and development activities and create innovative products and advanced services to avail themselves of the advantages of the advanced technologies and boost the crowdfunding performance [23]. When rapid technological advancement takes place in the market, the significance of older technology diminishes [24]. ...
The transformation of technological orientation and crowdfunding as innovative concepts combined with cutting-edge digital tools provides the foundation for outstanding fundraising success. Therefore, this study aims to explore the relationship between technology orientation (TO) and crowdfunding performance. Additionally, this research also investigates how crowdfunding digital platform mediates and innovation strategy moderates in the linkage between crowdfunding performance and technology orientation. Data were collected through a questionnaire on the basis of cross-sectional research design. Structural econometric models for direct and indirect analyses were conducted to test hypotheses. The results confirmed the direct positive impact of technology orientation on crowdfunding performance. Moreover, the findings prove the mediating role of a crowdfunding digital platform and moderating role of innovation strategy between technology orientation and crowdfunding performance. Fundraisers are required to give attention to technology orientation for the acceptance and adoption of the latest advancements in technology. They must consider digital platforms for fundraising and pay proper attention to innovation strategy for achieving the needed crowdfunding performance. This research discusses how return base crowdfunding performance occurs; in future, other researchers may provide evidence on donations/charity campaign base crowdfunding. This is the first study in the context of digital transformation that explored the nexus of technology orientation, crowdfunding digital platform and innovation strategy for attaining crowdfunding performance.
... For instance, women were expected to care for children because of their ability to naturally feed them, and men were expected to carry out the physical labor because of their strength. Currently, people are still segregated into certain roles that align with stereotypes or expectations of behavior (Anglin et al., 2018). In the division of labor within organizations, the social role theory says that the stereotypical expectations formerly established create gender-related expectations (Ganson, Gould, & Holcomb, 2020), thus creating differing expectations for men and women. ...
Prior research has produced conflicting findings regarding the positive outcomes of having gender diversity within top management teams. These studies have not considered the industry-specific context, the incorporation of binary, agender, and transexual traits, and potential non-financial outcomes, which play a role in organizational performance. Therefore, this paper aims to further this research by offering a research framework that is hospitality specific, highlights the benefits of gender diversity, and delineates the impact of gender diversity on firm performance and organizational justice based upon previous research and theories. The authors introduce potential processes and facilitators influencing the relationship between gender diversity, organizational performance, and organizational justice. These mechanisms have the potential to shape strategic changes, influence employee behaviors, increase service levels, and ultimately provide a competitive advantage.
... Peran merupakan harapan perilaku yang melekat pada posisi individu dalam pengaturan kelompok sosialnya (Anglin 2018 (Fadjri 1968). ...
The development of Muhammadiyah in West Java has been so far considered lagging behind, even though historical records show that the development of Muhammadiyah in West Java, especially in Garut in 1923, was included in the early period of its establishment. It is related to the role of batik merchants in Garut, including H. M. Djamhari who has been a catalyst in the development of Muhammadiyiah since 1919. Studies on the role of the early generations of batik traders in Garut, show a historical disconnect. Therefore, this study aims to reveal the role of batik merchants in the establishment and development of Muhammadiyah in Garut, 1919-1940. By using the historical method which emphasizes on primary and secondary sources, especially in the form of archives, publications, and interviews, this study succeeded in showing that the important contribution of batik merchants in the establishement of Muhammadiyah in Garut and appointed it as the center for the Muhammadiyah establishment in West Java. They built educational charities and developed other branches in Priangan (Tasikmalaya, Kuningan, Bandung and Sukabumi) as well as West Java. The merchants at that time were an elite group who had respectable social positions, so they could establish good relations with many parties for business, political and da'wah interests. Through this social role, batik merchants in Garut easily communicated with priyayi groups, religious leaders, and political figures at that time.
... However, there is no study that outlines how to use textual analysis to measure specific management accounting constructs such as the balanced scorecard (Kaplan & Norton, 1992), customer accounting (Roslender & Hart, 2010), corporate sustainability (Joshi & Li, 2016), and value-based management (VBM) (Burkert & Lueg, 2013). Other disciplines use textual analysis to measure entrepreneurial orientation (e.g., Short et al., 2010), narcissistic rhetoric (e.g., Anglin et al., 2018), and the sentiment of financial texts (Bochkay et al., 2019;Henry & Leone, 2016;Loughran & McDonald, 2011). These studies demonstrate the benefits of using textual analysis to overcome human judgement in manual content analyses, increase the efficiency and scalability of analyses, and remedy dissatisfying survey response rates Henry & Leone, 2016;Short et al., 2010). ...
... In addition, Deng et al. (2020, p. 22) demonstrated that language, culture, sexual orientation, credibility, patent ownership and logo images provided by the creators can affect crowdfunding campaign success. Anglin et al. (2018) used social role theory to examine the impact of narcissism in crowdfunding campaigns by analyzing 1863 crowdfunding campaigns from the Kickstarter platform. They uncovered an inverted-U relationship between narcissistic rhetoric and CS. ...
Purpose
Crowdfunding is a relatively new alternative method of raising capital for new ventures. In recent years, crowdfunding has also gained prominence within the food industry. On the basis of signaling theory, this study aims to analyze the success factors of vegan crowdfunding campaigns, which remains unexplored in academia.
Design/methodology/approach
This study employs a logistic regression analysis on a sample of 200 vegan crowdfunding campaigns launched in Europe between 2014 and 2021 on the popular crowdfunding platform Kickstarter.
Findings
The results show that the number of images, comments and updates as well as the readability of project descriptions positively impact the success rate of vegan crowdfunding campaigns. Furthermore, the length of the project description has a negative effect, whereas the number of videos has no bearing on the success of vegan crowdfunding campaigns.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors' knowledge, this study pioneers examining the success factors of vegan crowdfunding campaigns. This study enriches the literature in several ways. First, this study contributes to an open debate on the success factors of crowdfunding. Second, this study provides knowledge about the factors that can favor the success of vegan initiatives. Third, this study confirms the usefulness of signaling theory as a theoretical framework for understanding vegan crowdfunding.
... Our study expands emerging theorizing on when and how fundraising success on crowdfunding platforms shapes subsequent entrepreneurial venturing. Extant research on crowdfunding has extensively studied the conditions that impact fundraising success (e.g., Anglin et al., 2018;Block et al., 2018;Cappa et al., 2021;Steigenberger & Wilhelm, 2018;Taeuscher et al., 2021). However, as Vanacker et al., (2019: 228) point out, the "real challenges" for entrepreneurs start only after a successful crowdfunding campaign, when they need to "build viable businesses that create innovative products or services, generate employment, and provide the promised rewards or financial returns." ...
Plain English Summary
For entrepreneurs receiving more funding than sought in a crowdfunding campaign would seem to be a welcome outcome. However, prior studies have shown that such overfunding can have both positive and negative effects on subsequent product-development outcomes. To shed light on when the effects of overfunding are predominantly positive and when are they predominantly negative, we derive theory on how a product’s category spanning—that is, the positioning of a product in multiple product categories—may impact the effect of overfunding; specifically, on the probability that a product is released and on audience perceptions of the product’s quality. We test these predictions with data from video-game product-development projects crowdfunded on Kickstarter. Our results show that for products with low category spanning, overfunding can be beneficial in terms of both product release and audience perceptions of quality, while high overfunding for products with high category spanning can have detrimental effects for audience perceptions of quality.
... Given the absence of an established operationalization of provocative language in the social media space, we followed steps from the structured methodology of computer-aided text analysis (CATA) (for the CATA methodology, see McKenny et al., 2013;Short et al., 2010Short et al., , 2018. CATA is an established approach within the entrepreneurship literature (e.g., Anglin et al., 2018b;Seigner et al., 2022). Following this approach, we began deductively, identifying existing constructs in the management and entrepreneurship literature relevant to provocation (Short et al., 2010). ...
This article theorizes and empirically investigates how status and provocative language influence audience engagement with new-venture posts on social media platforms. Using venture capital funding as a status proxy, we analyzed 369,142 Twitter posts by 268 new ventures. We found that status (1) increases engagement with ventures' tweets, and that it (2) moderates the effect of provocative language on audience engagement so that provocative language has a negative effect for low-status ventures but a positive effect for high-status ventures. Post-hoc analyses provide a basis for pragmatic theorizing and explore the effects of status tiers and subdimensions of provocative language.
... Given the absence of an established operationalization of provocative language in the social media space, we followed steps from the structured methodology of computer-aided text analysis (CATA) (for the CATA methodology, see McKenny et al., 2013;Short et al., 2010Short et al., , 2018. CATA is an established approach within the entrepreneurship literature (e.g., Anglin et al., 2018b;Seigner et al., 2022). Following this approach, we began deductively, identifying existing constructs in the management and entrepreneurship literature relevant to provocation (Short et al., 2010). ...
This article theorizes and empirically investigates how status and provocative language influence audience engagement with new-venture posts on social media platforms. Using venture capital funding as a status proxy, we analyzed 369,142 Twitter posts by 268 new ventures. We found that status (1) increases engagement with ventures’ tweets, and that it (2) moderates the effect of provocative language on audience engagement so that provocative language has a negative effect for low-status ventures but a positive effect for high-status ventures. Post-hoc analyses provide a basis for pragmatic theorizing and explore the effects of status tiers and subdimensions of provocative language.
... Indeed, if the importance of the deviations from wider populations is not emphasized, they may be diminished, overlooked, or dismissed. However, by looking at multiple groups of unconventional entrepreneurs simultaneously, the Anglin et al. (2018) study allows us to discern whether narcissistic effects on performance are attributable to a participant's unconventionality in generali.e., their non-mainstream statusor to the specific nature of that unconventionalityi.e., their LGBTQ status, minority status, etc. Such design allows us to consider whether and how a study's theoretical findings can be expected to inform samples and populations beyond those examined while still valuing the enhanced precision that comes from a closer consideration of context. ...
Entrepreneurship has the potential to be an inclusive space comprising many types of conventional as well as unconventional entrepreneurs. In this essay we will argue that when it comes to unconventional entrepreneurs-ranging from refugee entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs with a physical or cognitive disability, to elder entrepreneurs, former convict entrepreneurs, and many others-there are important questions we are not asking because we tend to look at each subgroup in isolation. Our central message is that looking for shared wisdom across various groups of unconventional entrepreneurs may facilitate a shared theoretical conversation that aids the transfer of knowledge, prevents silos and the unnecessary reinventing of the wheel, boosts the field's appeal and critical mass, and facilitates a broader exchange of ideas. To facilitate that conversation, we identify who unconventional entrepreneurs are; identify obstacles to a common theoretical conversation and how these obstacles could be overcome; outline a set of common theoretical themes that apply across various groups of unconventional entrepreneurs; and show how further theorizing unconventional entrepreneurs could challenge the community to reach beyond our existing knowledge horizons to develop pioneering entrepreneurship research.
... According to researchers, [4], not only start-ups and business idea developers, but also the economy as a whole benefit from crowdfunding as a tool used to finance innovation proposals, as authors in [5] stated. Researchers, [6], emphasized that the issue of supporting new projects, which will increase the potential and competitiveness of the country, is urgent in the context of reduced investment and innovative activity in the state economy. ...
The relevance of crowdfunding in the context of social media marketing is confirmed by a broad media narrative for its multifaceted potential. Media marketing is becoming a driver for the promotion of business ideas and innovative projects in view of the growing role of social networks in shaping public opinion. The aim of the study was the development of a model for evaluating the success of crowdfunding projects and its implementation in the social media marketing system. Three dimensions of information description — the information volume, attitude to information (feedback), and information quality in terms of information communication — were considered as the components of the crowdfunding assessment model. The hypotheses were advanced about the relationship between information description and the success of crowdfunding based on these variables. The hypotheses were tested through the processing of data (N=544) from media agencies’ websites. The results show that the number of words in the project description is inversely related to the success of crowdfunding (b=−0.007), and the number of videos and images is directly related to the project success (R2=0.93). The effectiveness of social networks was confirmed allowing for the consumer loyalty to this method of obtaining information and time spent daily on the Internet (63% in the total user activity). The content analysis found that social networks demonstrated the best indicators in raising funds for crowdfunding, compared to the project promotion through traditional media, and it was the main idea of the research. This study has both theoretical and applied significance: it can be a starting point for establishing the academic background for studying the experience of implementing crowdfunding projects through social networks; the obtained results can be used in the practical activities of crowd marketers.
... To date, research on reward-based crowdfunding has primarily focused on understanding the link between campaign-level characteristics and project success, including the effects of signals of project quality and founder credibility (Courtney et al. 2017;Mollick 2014), funding status (Kuppuswamy and Bayus 2017), communication content and linguistic style (Anglin et al. 2018a(Anglin et al. , 2018bParhankangas and Renko 2017;Allison et al. 2017), and the innovativeness and creativity of the proposed outcome (Parhankangas and Renko 2017;Davis et al. 2017). Another stream of research has examined the effects of individual-level characteristics of the entrepreneur in the form of internal social capital (Colombo et al. 2015;Skirnevskiy et al. 2017), signals of perceived entrepreneurial competence (Scheaf et al. 2018;Frydrych et al. 2014), and entrepreneurial passion Oo et al. 2019). ...
In this research, we study the funding decision in crowdfunding from the perspective of potential backers. We assess whether perceived uncertainty affects the decision to contribute to crowdfunding campaigns. For this purpose, we conduct a 2 × 2 between-subjects experiment with different stages of product development and the perceived innovativeness of products depicted in campaigns. Our findings show that an early development stage positively affects perceived uncertainty, adversely affecting the willingness to contribute. Simultaneously, higher perceived innovativeness elicits higher uncertainty perceptions, negatively influencing the willingness to contribute. Our research furthers an understanding of entrepreneur perspective taking to overcome uncertainty perceptions from the indeterminacy of crowdfunding campaigns.
... We establish that transgender entrepreneurs differ from cis-gender entrepreneurs. By showing variances in different dimensions of entrepreneurial fear of failure for the two groups, we answer the call to study the specific sub-group of transgender entrepreneurs (Marlow and Martinez Dy, 2018) and contribute to the expanding body of entrepreneurship research in the LGBTQ+ population (see also Anglin et al., 2018) by focusing on the under-studied sub-population of transgender entrepreneurs (Fernandez-Mateo and Kaplan, 2018). ...
... This is because many of the SE funding publications also examined the entrepreneurs' traits, which provides a thematic link between the two seemingly disparate themes. For example, Anglin et al. (2018) demonstrated that entrepreneurs with a high sense of self-importance or influence (preoccupation with success, a need for authority, competitiveness, and pervasive patterns of grandiose thinking) had the most optimal crowdfunding performance. Bernardino and Santos (2016) further noted that some personality traits influence the decision to finance social projects through crowdfunding. ...
This article maps existing research from 5,874 scholarly publications on social entrepreneurship (SE) utilizing scientometrics. The mapping indicates a taxonomy of five clusters: (a) the nature of SE, (b) policy implications and employment in relation to SE, (c) SE in communities and health, (d) SE personality traits, and (e) SE education. We complement the scientometric analysis with a systematic literature review of publications on SE in the Financial Times 50 list (FT50) and Business & Society and propose a multistage, multilevel framework that highlights the clusters of existing research on SE based on their stage and level of analysis. This review study also helps outline a set of future research directions, including studies examining (a) the process stage at the micro-level and macro-level, (b) linkages across levels and stages, (c) linkages across stages over time or longitudinal studies, (d) SE in resource-constrained environments, (e) technological advancement and its impact on SE, (f) the types of social enterprises and their outcomes, and (g) various emerging topics in SE.
... For example, Allison et al. (2017) found that characterizing the venture as a personal dream in a pitch narrative positively influenced inexperienced, first-time funders. Moderate accounts of narcissistic rhetoric enhance crowdfunding performance; however, the impact of narcissistic rhetoric becomes detrimental to performance when used extensively (Anglin et al., 2018). Drawing on text, speech, and video metadata of crowdfunding campaigns, Kaminski and Hopp (2019) found that linguistic styles that aim to trigger excitement or are aimed at inclusiveness are better predictors of campaign success than firm-level determinants. ...
This study explores the discourse of social entrepreneurs and their audiences in pitch situations. Adopting a practice perspective on social entrepreneurship, we videotaped 49 pitches by social entrepreneurs at five different events in two incubators in Germany and Switzerland. Our analysis of the start-ups’ pitches and the audience’s questions and comments as well as of interview data elucidates the nuances of social and business discourse that social entrepreneurs and their audiences draw upon. Our analysis shows how many social entrepreneurs mobilize a discursive repertoire that is familiar to their business-oriented audience while others predominantly draw on a social discourse. We identify separating, mixing, and combining as key strategies that allow social entrepreneurs to dance between the two. We discuss how the intertextual reproduction of concepts, objects, and subject positions contains both enabling and constraining elements, which results in an ethical dilemma for social entrepreneurs: Should they re-package their social impact story in a business discourse to connect with their audience?
Recent research on entrepreneurship has established that individuals with certain personality traits are more likely to take up entrepreneurial careers as compared to others. However, it is still unclear whether and how the dark side of individuals’ personality impacts entrepreneurial career intentions. Accordingly, this study, building on the theory of planned behaviour, seeks to explore the mechanisms through which narcissism—a dark personality trait—impacts entrepreneurial intention. The authors contend that narcissism shapes the individual’s attitude and worldview of the prevailing subjective norms, which collectively translate into evaluating entrepreneurship as a favourable career choice. This study empirically validates the hypotheses using a sample of 220 postgraduate students in an Indian business school. The findings offer crucial implications for individuals trying to make career choices; and demonstrate that it would be helpful for individuals to explore the dark side of their personality before arriving at an appropriate career choice.
This study offers a comprehensive and multidisciplinary review of the research on the antecedents of investor valuation in the management, accounting, and finance literature. Despite the growing recognition of the importance of investors and financial markets, our current understanding of the factors that drive investor valuation remains incomplete. To address this gap, we classify the existing literature on investor valuation into three perspectives: social, cognitive, and economic. The social perspective examines how social forces, such as institutional norms and pressure, shape investor valuation. The cognitive perspective focuses on the psychological underpinnings of investors’ valuation decisions, while the economic perspective emphasizes how investors determine the value of firms through rational cost-and-benefit calculations. This review compares the research on investor valuation in the management literature to that in the accounting and finance literature, identifying gaps in the management literature and discussing emerging trends that may influence investor valuation. The review also proposes an agenda for future research. In conclusion, this study illuminates the intricate and multifaceted nature of investor valuation, as well as the underlying factors that influence it.
Across two studies, we apply self-regulation theory to test nonlinear relationships between founder Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy and new venture performance. Our hypotheses are supported for Machiavellianism and psychopathy, but contrary to our theorizing, we find a positive relationship between narcissism and performance. Furthermore, we identify an important explanatory mechanism in knowledge sharing, which mediates the curvilinear relationships at moderate and high levels. Our research has implications for how we understand the influence of problematic founder personality traits and how behavioral differences at varying levels of these traits can explain relationships with performance, and it presents a nuanced perspective to trait-based explanations for destructive entrepreneurial actions.
Purpose
Confidence gives entrepreneurs the belief that they can exercise control and that they have the ability to ensure the success of a focal entrepreneurial endeavor. However, failure can rattle an entrepreneur's confidence causing them to question their belief and ability. This study investigates the link between confidence and entrepreneurial plan upon reentry after crowdfunding failure. Particularly, it examines whether more confident entrepreneurs who failed in their original crowdfunding endeavor persist or change their plan in terms of the positioning of the crowdfunding endeavor and the funding goal in the subsequent attempt.
Design/methodology/approach
Using a sample of 2179 serial crowdfunding entrepreneurs who initially experienced failure before launching a subsequent crowdfunding endeavor, this study explores and tests four hypotheses on the relationship between confidence and the change implemented by entrepreneurs in their subsequent crowdfunding endeavors after failure.
Findings
The results suggest that more confident entrepreneurs who experienced failure in their initial crowdfunding endeavor persist in their positioning when they attempt a subsequent endeavor. However, no strong relationship was observed between entrepreneurial confidence and persistence with the funding goal of the initial crowdfunding plan in the subsequent crowdfunding endeavor. The study also finds suggestive but inconclusive evidence that the level of negative performance in the failed crowdfunding endeavor moderates the relationship between the entrepreneur's confidence and change in crowdfunding positioning.
Originality/value
This study provides new insights into the effect of entrepreneurial confidence on crowdfunding endeavors after an initial failure. Prior research has focused on its effect in driving the performance of crowdfunding endeavors rather than on how it may affect the plan in terms of the positioning and funding goal enacted by the entrepreneur after experiencing failure.
There has been growing scholarly interest in the impact of CEO narcissism on discrete firm outcomes. One area this CEO characteristic might impact is the firm's corporate political activity (CPA), and in fact scholars have called for further research into its antecedents. In this article, we argue that while CEO narcissism might be negatively related to CPA in general, the CPA the firms do engage in will be aimed at more ideologically extreme politicians. To test this prediction, we rely on prior research that has identified manifestations of CEO narcissism such as CEOs’ compensation and the size of their pictures in the annual report. We develop databases following this guidance that we test using panel data analysis and propensity score matching to address endogeneity. We find support for our hypotheses by testing an unbalanced panel with 10,841 observations of 2,211 publicly traded firms over a ten-year period.
Current online marketplaces, characterized by a high number of sellers and the velocity of offerings, make service differentiation difficult for sellers. One particularly promising avenue for sellers (in this study: individuals) beyond classical demand‐side approaches (i.e., prices) is to employ linguistic descriptions of their offerings. Yet, it remains mostly unclear what constitutes “successful” linguistic strategies. To elaborate on this, the current paper mines more than 2000 unique service offerings on Fiverr.com, a leading online marketplace for freelance services. By distinguishing between different service categories (i.e., hedonic and utilitarian services) and other characteristics of individual sellers (e.g., the origin of a seller), the paper analyzes the linguistic service descriptions via the Linguistic Inquirer and Word Counts (LIWC) and provides an empirical taxonomy of linguistic styles among individuals. Although the paper is novel and explorative, a few interesting insights can be obtained. First, there are significant linguistic differences in how sellers describe their service offerings depending on the service category (hedonic/utilitarian). Second, linguistic proxies of complexity, namely, words per sentence, six‐letter words, and the overall word count (i.e., increasing informational content) as well as signals of analytical language, appear to be a beneficial strategy for sellers. Third, a linguistic strategy aimed at matching (congruence) of service categories (hedonic/utilitarian) and linguistic styles (analytical/emotional) appears to be beneficial. The results have important implications for creating linguistic strategies in online marketplaces focused on services on the supply side.
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 humility have developed largely in isolation with little overlap between fields. This has created a fundamental divide between micro and macro researchers who suggest that humility is conceptualized as both a mutable behavioral state and a stable leader trait, respectively. We provide a systematic review of research on leader humility at multiple organizational levels of analysis to provide linkages across disciplinary and theoretical divides. We couple our systematic review with a meta-analysis of 212 unique studies, identifying 99 estimates for the relationships between leader humility and numerous individual, team, and organizational variables. Among all variables, we find humble leadership most strongly predicts followers’ satisfaction with the leader and the leaders’ participative decision making. We also find humble leadership does not affect their own job performance or the performance of organizations, but improves the performance of their followers and teams. Building on our results, we call for research across academic disciplines.
Purpose
Recent years have seen a meteoric rise in the study of narcissism in entrepreneurship, although little consolidation has occurred in this area. The purpose of this paper is the development of an integrative framework to harmonise the academic discussion and serve as a structured foundation for future research.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors conducted an artificial intelligence-aided, structured literature review focused on content analysis of concepts and contexts to map out current findings and research gaps in startup narcissism research.
Findings
According to the findings of this study, narcissistic tendencies have the potential to positively influence startup success early on in an entrepreneur's journey, but after a certain point in the process, the influence of narcissism on success becomes predominantly negative.
Research limitations/implications
The research field is currently not very harmonised regarding research measures, research subjects and key research terms. Further research must use a standardised approach to add value to the research body.
Practical implications
Narcissism is a two-sided sword for founders. In the early stages of a company, many of the founder’s tasks can benefit from narcissistic tendencies. In the later stages of a company, that might shift to overwhelmingly negative effects of narcissism.
Originality/value
Methodically, this study is the first one to establish an artificial intelligence component to add value to the results of a review paper to the best of the authors’ knowledge. The results of this study provide a clear framework of entrepreneurial intention, entrepreneurial activity and entrepreneurial performance to give researchers the opportunity of a more differentiated way of organising work.
Purpose
Emerging evidence regarding crowdfunding challenges long-standing “gender gap” views of traditional entrepreneurial financing and indicates that female entrepreneurs may have an advantage in crowdfunding. Yet, the literature primarily focuses on influences at the individual level, largely overlooking the interaction between gender and higher-level culture. Drawing on Hofstede's cultural dimensions, this paper aims to investigate the associations among entrepreneurs' gender, culture and crowdfunding performance, particularly in how entrepreneurs' gender and culture interact to affect crowdfunding performance.
Design/methodology/approach
Leveraging a sample of 21,730 Kickstarter crowdfunding campaigns and combining these data with data from Hofstede's study, the World Bank (WB) and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), this study applies multilevel models to empirically investigate this question across 22 countries/regions.
Findings
This study confirms that the advantageous effect, that female entrepreneurs are likely to obtain better fundraising performance over their male counterparts, does exist in crowdfunding. Furthermore, the findings reveal that this advantageous effect of female entrepreneurs on crowdfunding performance would be reinforced when cultures of individualism and indulgence are high and culture of long-term orientation is low.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the literature on gender gaps in crowdfunding and entrepreneurial financing by adding an important culture-related boundary condition to the gender preference reported in earlier crowdfunding work. Moreover, the paper extends the knowledge about the impact of culture on crowdfunding performance and enlightens future research on leveraging multilevel modeling approach to examine the complex interplay between individuals and situations in crowdfunding.
This study draws on the linguistics literature, which recognizes the role of language attributes in shaping individual behaviour. We theorize that weak-future languages (e.g., Chinese), which create the perception that the future is closer temporally to the present than do strong-future languages (e.g., English), favour future-oriented behaviours such as investment in crowdfunding of entrepreneurial ventures. To test this thesis, we use a mixed-method approach, combining an original dataset of crowdfunding investments in 53 countries (Study 1) and a randomized experiment examining the investment behaviour of 77 bilingual (English-Chinese) students (Study 2). We find that natives of countries with weak-future languages engage more actively in crowdfunding of entrepreneurial ventures compared to individuals from countries with strong-future languages. We find that this effect dominates the stable effect of national culture. In other words, perceiving the future as closer means that the future assumes greater psychological importance for weak-future speakers and, therefore, they enact more future-oriented behaviours.
One of the unique characteristics of crowdfunding is that funding flows from the online community of individuals and organizations who identify with the campaign and are most interested in its viability and success. Most of these online funding communities (OFCs) are built around common shared goals, ideologies, enthusiasm for, or interests in specific funding activities. Despite this uniqueness, we understand little about the role that these communities play in crowdfunding success. Utilizing a rich dataset integrated from one of the most popular crowdfunding platforms in the UK, we explain how targeting an OFC positively influences crowdfunding success. Following a text similarity approach, we also provide evidence that the congruence between the crowdfunding campaign and targeted OFC is associated with higher success rate. We discuss the contribution to the academic literature on entrepreneurial finance and crowdfunding success as well as the practical implications for entrepreneurs interested in tapping the potential of crowdfunding as an alternative source of financing.
Insufficient access to capital is a major challenge that threatens the formation of university spin-off companies in most sub-Saharan African countries. This stems from the fact that there is restricted access to start-up capitals for businesses in these countries. The study, thus, aims at suggesting crowdfunding as an alternate source of funding for university spinoff formation particularly in Ghana. Using Asymmetric Information and Social Networking theories, this paper highlights the relevance of these two theories to crowdfunding particularly in Ghana. A qualitative research method was used to conduct the study, and a semi-structured interview was used during the data gathering process. The findings suggest that though crowdfunding is a fairly new concept in Ghana, it is similar to Susu, which is a Ghanaian traditional microfinancing concept and therefore has a high acceptability rate. Similarly, the findings suggest that information asymmetric plague the smooth operations of the crowdfunding concept in Ghana.
The crucial role language plays in constituting our reality, and in achieving political influence and control, has long been known in scholarship. However, appreciation of the role of language in understanding our social realities and power relations has not been fully translated to education or even to research beyond linguistically focussed academic strands. Bringing together well-established scholars from a range of disciplines, this book demonstrates why language awareness and discourse consciousness should be considered a key skill in business and professional life, and looks closely at language in areas such as entrepreneurship, leadership, human resource management, medical, financial, or business communication, ecology, media, and politics. The authors demonstrate how the understanding of the minutiae of language use in a variety of professional contexts leads to knowledge that will empower future generations of professionals and enable them to develop a self-reflexive, critical, and more ethical practice.
Donation has an important role in bridging the rich and poor gap and maintaining social stability. With the development of Fintech, selfless support in crowdfunding has become a new channel of donation. This paper uses Python to capture the data from ZhongChou.com and studies the donation behavior in crowdfunding. The results of our study show that the higher financing performance of a crowdfunding project is the result of the higher number of people who support the crowdfunding project selflessly and anonymously. The donation behavior of crowdfunding investors stems from social needs and thus shows the characteristics of “pro-sociality”. The anonymous donation behavior matches the specific target audience through signal burying. Further research shows that the impact of donation behavior on financing performance is significantly heterogeneous. In agricultural and public welfare projects, the effect of selfless donation and anonymous donation on financing performance is more significant. The donation behavior prompts the crowdfunding project to complete the financing target more quickly and get more time for over-funding.
Drawing on signalling theory and the linguistic framing perspective, we propose that the effectiveness of linguistic styles employed by entrepreneurs in pitching their ideas, manifested as funding success, depends on entrepreneurs’ ethnicity (white vs. non-white). Using a sample of 430 equity crowdfunding projects, we found that the use of past-oriented linguistic style and concrete linguistic style led to greater funding outcomes for ventures with minority founders than it did for those with white founders. Future-oriented linguistic style, on the other hand, was found to be more beneficial for ventures with white founders. In addition, we found a consistent pattern of results using racial composition of entrepreneurial team rather than the race of individual founders, which implies that investors’ bias is not only limited to individual founders’ ethnicity but also persists regarding the wider entrepreneurial team.
Purpose
The crowdfunding concept and activities have recently been the focus of attention of many researchers and practitioners over different business contexts. However, there is a dearth of literature considering the main aspects of e-equity crowdfunding activities and their impact on the innovation performance for entrepreneurial business. Therefore, this study aims to explore how entrepreneurs' engagement in e-crowdfunding activities could enhance both knowledge acquisition and innovation performance.
Design/methodology/approach
The conceptual model will be proposed based on three main theoretical perspectives: relationship marketing orientation (RMO); Kirzner's alertness theory; and the DeLone and McLean model of information systems. The data of the current study were collected using an online questionnaire from a sample of 500 entrepreneurs who have actively engaged in e-crowdfunding in Saudi Arabia.
Findings
The statistical results of structural equation modelling (SEM) approved the impacting role of RMO, entrepreneurial alertness, system quality and service quality on the entrepreneurs' engagement in e-equity crowdfunding, which in turn, predicts both knowledge acquisition and innovation performance.
Research limitations/implications
There are several limitations which could be addressed in future studies, for example, this study has only considered one form of crowdfunding (equity based crowdfunding) and due to its nature these findings would not be easily generalized to other kinds of crowdfunding (i.e. donation-based crowdfunding; rewards-based crowdfunding; and debt-based crowdfunding). Future studies could consider these kinds of crowdfunding activities.
Originality/value
This study has contributed to the understanding of e-equity crowdfunding in several aspects. For example, this study presents results that assist both researchers and practitioners in the Middle East and Saudi Arabia to develop an in-depth knowledge of e-equity crowdfunding by considering new dimensions such as RMO and information system success factors.
The crucial role language plays in constituting our reality, and in achieving political influence and control, has long been known in scholarship. However, appreciation of the role of language in understanding our social realities and power relations has not been fully translated to education or even to research beyond linguistically focussed academic strands. Bringing together well-established scholars from a range of disciplines, this book demonstrates why language awareness and discourse consciousness should be considered a key skill in business and professional life, and looks closely at language in areas such as entrepreneurship, leadership, human resource management, medical, financial, or business communication, ecology, media, and politics. The authors demonstrate how the understanding of the minutiae of language use in a variety of professional contexts leads to knowledge that will empower future generations of professionals and enable them to develop a self-reflexive, critical, and more ethical practice.
In this study, we draw on the threatened egotism theory to examine the effect of angel narcissism on their investment behaviors and the boundary condition of past investment performance. We propose that angel narcissism is positively related to deal size and portfolio industry diversification but negatively related to the number of co-investors. Moreover, past investment performance moderates these relationships such that the effects of angel narcissism on their investment behaviors are stronger when past investment performance is lower. Data from a longitudinal analysis of 133 angels from 2010 to 2019 largely supported our hypotheses. Our study, the first to examine angel narcissism, highlights the psychological foundation of angel investing.
Chief Executive Officer (CEO) personality belongs to the most important constructs for business practice and research, but its measurement remains a major obstacle. Therefore, I propose a language‐based approach of freely available, large‐scale corporate documents to study linguistic hints regarding CEOs' personality dimensions by applying a validated, closed‐based approach developed to a sample of Fortune 500 companies. I compare the results to validated, machine learning‐trained open‐based results obtained from conference calls of 3000 CEOs of S&P 1500 companies. In order to provide a basis for comparison, I supplement these linguistic personality profiles with a sample of convicted criminal CEOs that provide an archetype of extreme linguistic cases. Finally, after controlling for commonly used content analytical constructs (e.g., entrepreneurial orientation, market orientation) to capture CEOs' cognitive state, I link these cross‐sectional linguistic profiles to longitudinal firm‐level performance data. The analysis indicates that the linguistic manifestations of CEO personality explain a great share of firm performance in conjunction with observable individual, industry, and firm‐level data. While there appear to be complementarities between open‐based and closed‐based language approaches, the analysis also indicates that the open‐based linguistic trait of neuroticism is negatively related to various measures of firm performance. In particular, these measures appear to be more robust against genre effects and language that are unique among CEOs (self‐selection effects). Therefore, the approach sheds light on the important role of validation procedures in the realm of computer‐aided content analysis (CATA) and the conducive and detrimental effects of CEO personality cues on firm performance. The paper discusses practical implications for stakeholders and shareholders wishing to infer personality cues of key decision‐makers from large‐scale corporate documents and theoretical implications for the advancement of the upper echelon research.
This article connects work on emotion, rhetoric, and entrepreneurial experience as it reports findings from a questionnaire issued to 80 entrepreneurs who belong to the global entrepreneur community Startup Grind. The findings from this study offer researchers a more robust representation of the rhetorical theories that guide entrepreneurs’ professional communication practices. In particular, the authors report on the distribution and dependency between two variables: operative rhetorical theory (indicated by one of four choices) and entrepreneurial experience (indicated by number of ventures and total years of experience).
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 enhances crowdfunding performance. We examine 1726 crowdfunding campaigns from Kickstarter, finding that entrepreneurs conveying positive psychological capital experience superior fundraising performance. Human capital moderates this relationship while social capital does not, suggesting that costly signals may, at times, enhance the influence of costless signals. Post hoc analyses suggest findings generalize across crowdfunding types, but not to IPOs.
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 suggest that issue-relevant information, such as entrepreneurs' education, matters most when funders possess greater ability and motivation to make careful evaluations. In contrast, cues, such as adopting a group identity, have their strongest influence among inexperienced, first-time funders, and when requested funding amounts are smaller.
Research generally suggests that, relative to commercial entrepreneurs, social entrepreneurs stand at a disadvantage at acquiring resources through traditional financial institutions. Yet interest in social entrepreneurship appears to be at an all-time high. The current paper advances the argument that an innovative institutional form - crowdfunding - has emerged to address the needs of social entrepreneurs and other entrepreneurs with limited access to traditional sources of capital. To examine this, we study whether and how a sustainability orientation affects entrepreneurs' ability to acquire financial resources through crowdfunding and hypothesize that a venture's sustainability orientation will enhance its fundraising capability. We also suggest that project legitimacy and creativity mediate the relationship between a sustainability orientation and funding success. Our analysis produces two key findings: 1) a sustainability orientation positively affects funding success of crowdfunding projects, and 2) this relationship is partially mediated by project creativity and third party endorsements. © 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd and Society for the Advancement of Management Studies.
This paper makes two contributions to research on the new entrepreneurial finance context of equity crowdfunding. First, we compare its regulation around the world and discuss how this impacts the development of markets. Second, we investigate the signaling role played toward external investors by equity retention and social capital. Using a sample of 271 projects listed on the UK platforms Crowdcube and Seedrs in the period 2011–2014, we find that campaigns launched by entrepreneurs (1) who sold smaller fraction of their companies at listing and (2) had more social capital had higher probabilities of success. Our results combine findings in classical entrepreneurial finance settings, like venture capital and IPOs, with evidence from other, non-equity crowdfunding markets.
Earlier evidence predominantly supports that women are more ethical than men. With the replication of such a hypothesis for testing, this study further examined whether feminine gender roles are a better predictor of ethical attitudes, ethical behaviors, and corporate responsibility values than the biological sex. Four hundred ten management students from two technical institutes in eastern India participated in this study. Along with the socio-demographic variables in the questionnaire, inventories were used to assess gender roles, ethical attitudes, ethical behaviors, and corporate responsibility values. The inventories had acceptable reliability and validity. The results suggested that when the confounding effects of age, caste, and rural/urban origin are controlled, women manifest higher corporate responsibility values than men, but they embody similar ethical attitudes and ethical behaviors as men. Furthermore, the feminine roles of the participants were found to be more consistent, potent, and direct predictors of ethical attitudes, ethical behaviors, and corporate responsibility values than the biological sex. Hence, individuals with feminine roles may be better suited for ethical responsibilities.
This study of full-time managers and professionals examined whether variables selected from theories of the psychology of gender as well as identity, boundary, and role theories explained effects of sex on work-to-family conflict and "positive spillover." Women experienced higher positive spillover than men, primarily because they were higher in femininity. Although women did not experience different levels of conflict than men, individuals who scored higher on measured family role salience, which was positively related to femininity, experienced lower levels of conflict. Role segmentation not only reduced conflict but also had the unintended consequence of reducing positive spillover.
Most theoretical frameworks in entrepreneurship emphasize that entrepreneurial passion drives entrepreneurial effort. We hypothesize that the reverse effect is also true, and investigate changes in passion as an outcome of effort. Based on theories of self-regulation and self-perception, we hypothesize that making new venture progress and free choice are two factors that help to explain why and under which conditions entrepreneurial effort affects entrepreneurial passion. We undertook two studies to investigate our hypotheses. First, we conducted a weekly field study with 54 entrepreneurs who reported entrepreneurial effort and passion over 8 weeks (341 observations). The results showed that entrepreneurial effort predicted changes in entrepreneurial passion. Second, we conducted an experiment (n 5 136) to investigate the effect of effort on passion and the underlying psychological processes in a laboratory setting. The results revealed that new venture progress mediated the effect of entrepreneurial effort on passion, and that free choice moderated the mediated effect. Overall, our findings provide a new theoretical perspective on the relationship between entrepreneurial effort and passion.
Narcissists are characterized by a desire to show off and to obtain external validation from others. Research has shown that narcissists are particularly attracted to Facebook, because it allows them to self-promote. But do they receive the attention they crave on Facebook? This study examined Friends’ responsiveness (operationalized as number of comments and “likes”) to Facebook users’ status updates, as a function of the latter’s narcissism. Undergraduates (N = 155) filled out a narcissism scale and offered us access to their profiles, from which we extracted indicators of Friends’ responsiveness. Results show that individuals high in narcissism were less likely to receive comments and “likes” in response to their status updates than individuals low in narcissism. This effect was driven by exploitativeness and entitlement, two components of narcissism. The findings extend understanding of narcissists’ social interactions, an understudied topic, and elucidate some of the psychological factors that drive Facebook interaction.
Despite the widely held belief that men are more narcissistic than women, there has been no systematic review to establish the magnitude, variability across measures and settings, and stability over time of this gender difference. Drawing on the biosocial approach to social role theory, a meta-analysis performed for Study 1 found that men tended to be more narcissistic than women (d = .26; k = 355 studies; N = 470,846). This gender difference remained stable in U.S. college student cohorts over time (from 1990 to 2013) and across different age groups. Study 1 also investigated gender differences in three facets of the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI) to reveal that the narcissism gender difference is driven by the Exploitative/Entitlement facet (d = .29; k = 44 studies; N = 44,108) and Leadership/Authority facet (d = .20; k = 40 studies; N = 44,739); whereas the gender difference in Grandiose/Exhibitionism (d = .04; k = 39 studies; N = 42,460) was much smaller. We further investigated a less-studied form of narcissism called vulnerable narcissism-which is marked by low self-esteem, neuroticism, and introversion-to find that (in contrast to the more commonly studied form of narcissism found in the DSM and the NPI) men and women did not differ on vulnerable narcissism (d = -.04; k = 42 studies; N = 46,735). Study 2 used item response theory to rule out the possibility that measurement bias accounts for observed gender differences in the three facets of the NPI (N = 19,001). Results revealed that observed gender differences were not explained by measurement bias and thus can be interpreted as true sex differences. Discussion focuses on the implications for the biosocial construction model of gender differences, for the etiology of narcissism, for clinical applications, and for the role of narcissism in helping to explain gender differences in leadership and aggressive behavior. Readers are warned against overapplying small effect sizes to perpetuate gender stereotypes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved).
This study builds on insights from both upper echelons and agency perspectives to examine the effects on corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices of CEO’s narcissism. Drawing on prior theory about CEO narcissism, we argue that CSR can be a response to leaders’ personal needs for attention and image reinforcement and hypothesize that CEO narcissism has positive effects on levels and profile of organizational CSR; additionally, CEO narcissism will reduce the effect of CSR on performance. We find support for our ideas with a sample of Fortune 500 CEOs, operationalizing CEO narcissism with a novel media-based measurement technique that uses third-party ratings of CEO characteristics with validated psychometric scales.
In the present work, we investigate the pop cultural idea that people have a sixth sense called “gaydar,” to detect who is gay. We propose that “gaydar” is an alternate label for using social stereotypes to infer orientation (e.g., inferring that fashionable men are gay). According to some recent work, however, people may possess a facial perception process that enables them to identify sexual orientation from the face (Rule et al., 2008). In the present 5 experiments, participants made gay-or-straight judgments about fictional targets that were constructed using experimentally-manipulated stereotypic cues, real gay/straight people’s face cues, or combinations of stereotypic and face cues. This work reveals that orientation is not visible from the face—purportedly “face-based” gaydar arises from a third-variable confound. People do, however, readily infer orientation from stereotypes (e.g., fashion, career choice). Furthermore, the notion of gaydar serves as a legitimizing myth: Compared to a control group, people stereotyped more when led to believe in gaydar, whereas people stereotyped less when told gaydar is an alternate label for stereotyping. Discussion focuses on the implications of the gaydar myth and why, contrary to claims of some prior work, stereotypes are highly unlikely to result in accurate judgments about orientation.
Despite the widespread use of exploratory factor analysis in psychological research, researchers often make questionable decisions when conducting these analyses. This article reviews the major design and analytical decisions that must be made when conducting a factor analysis and notes that each of these decisions has important consequences for the obtained results. Recommendations that have been made in the methodological literature are discussed. Analyses of 3 existing empirical data sets are used to illustrate how questionable decisions in conducting factor analyses can yield problematic results. The article presents a survey of 2 prominent journals that suggests that researchers routinely conduct analyses using such questionable methods. The implications of these practices for psychological research are discussed, and the reasons for current practices are reviewed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Research has established a number of personality features and behaviours associated with business creation and success. The similarities between these traits and narcissism, a concept with roots in clinical psychology and psychiatry, led the authors to conduct this study, which proposes to measure whether entrepreneurs score higher on a narcissism scale than other vocational groups. The second goal of this study is to measure the role of narcissism on intention to start a business. Student entrepreneurs have been compared with non-entrepreneur students, city workers, and employees and managers from a branch of a large financial institution. Then, students filled out measures of general self-efficacy, locus of control and risk propensity as well as a narcissism scale. Results indicate that student entrepreneurs score significantly higher than all other vocational groups on a measure of narcissism. Results also indicate that narcissism is positively correlated with general self-efficacy, locus of control and risk propensity. Moreover, narcissism plays a significant role in explaining entrepreneurial intentions, even after controlling for self-efficacy, locus of control and risk propensity. Overall, these findings shed new light on the underlying personality traits of entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial intentions and suggest new directions in the study of entrepreneurs’ personality profile.
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 framing affects fundraising outcomes in the context of prosocial lending and conduct our analysis on a sample of microloans made to over 36,000 entrepreneurs in 51 countries via an online crowdfunding platform. We find that lenders respond positively to narratives highlighting the venture as an opportunity to help others, and less positively when the narrative is framed as a business opportunity.
Drawing on entrepreneurial motivation and goal striving literatures, we examined the dynamic relationship between momentary perceived progress, or an ongoing sense of how one is doing in the pursuit of one's venture goal, and entrepreneurial effort intensity among early-stage entrepreneurs who are based in business incubators. We also examined how perceived progress variability over time predicted entrepreneurial effort intensity, and whether venture goal commitment moderated this link. Experience-sampling data collected from over one hundred early-stage entrepreneurs indicated that perceived progress predicted greater effort intensity. Moreover, perceived progress variability over time negatively predicted entrepreneurial effort intensity, and venture goal commitment attenuated this negative relationship. Theoretical and practical implications of our study to entrepreneurial motivation and goal striving research are discussed.
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 witnessed a mutual exchange of ideas that present opportunities benefiting both fields. Drawing from four key domains of entrepreneurship previously proposed to mutually inform future leadership research efforts, we make suggestions for integrating entrepreneurial opportunities, the roles of individual and entrepreneurial teams, the modes of organizing entrepreneurial ventures, and differing entrepreneurial environments with key trends important to leadership research, such as servant leadership and leader-member exchange theory. Overall, our work provides an assessment of the state of the art surrounding the coalescence of leadership and entrepreneurship research and sets an agenda for the next decade of research at this intersection.
The dearth of minority entrepreneurs has received increasing media attention but few academic analyses. In particular, the funding process creates challenges for either audit or correspondence methods, making it difficult to assess the role, or type, of discrimination influencing resource providers. We use a novel approach that combines analyses of 7,617 crowdfunding projects with an experimental design to identify whether African American men are discriminated against and whether this reflects statistical, taste-based, or unconscious bias on the part of prospective supporters. We find that African American men are significantly less likely than similar white founders to receive funding and that prospective supporters rate identical projects as lower in quality when they believe the founder is an African American male. We conclude that the reduction in perceived quality does not reflect conscious assumptions of differences in founder ability or disamenity but rather an unconscious assumption that black founders are lower quality. In two additional experiments, we identify three means of reducing this bias: through additional evidence of quality via third-party endorsements (i.e., awards, evidence of prior support), through evidence that African American founders have succeeded previously, and by removing indicators of the founder’s race.
The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2017.2774.
This paper was accepted by Toby Stuart, entrepreneurship and innovation.
Crowdfunding is an emerging phenomenon that enables entrepreneurs to solicit financial contributions for new projects from mass audiences. Drawing on the elaboration likelihood model of persuasion and emotional contagion theory, the authors examined the importance of displayed entrepreneurial passion when seeking resources in a crowdfunding context. They proposed that entrepreneurs’ displayed passion in the introductory video for a crowdfunding project increases viewers’ experienced enthusiasm about the project (i.e., passion contagion), which then prompts them to contribute financially and to share campaign information via social-media channels. Such sharing further facilitates campaign success. In addition, the authors proposed that perceived project innovativeness strengthens the positive effect of displayed passion on social-media exposure and the funding amount a project garners. They first tested their hypotheses in 2 studies using a combination of survey and archival data from the world’s 2 most popular crowdfunding platforms: Indiegogo (Study 1) and Kickstarter (Study 2). They then conducted an experiment (Study 3) to validate the proposed passion contagion process, and the effect of displayed entrepreneurial passion at the individual level. Findings from these 3 studies significantly supported their hypotheses. The authors discuss the theoretical and practical implications of their findings.
The article examines factors contributing to variations in executives' levels of confidence and proposes that executive confidence is influenced by contextual stimuli but that it is moderated by the executive's decision. The concept of capability cues is presented, which are described as contextual signals that decision makers might interpret as indicators of the current level of overall ability. Capability cues' effect on an executive's interpretation of the riskiness of current decisions is explored. It is shown that boldness is influenced by positive cues while negative cues will induce timidity.
Interactions between project creators and backers on the crowdfunding platform represent the linchpin of every campaign. However, the resulting internal social capital has received little academic attention. To address this topic, we frame how internal social capital can develop through project track record and how internal social capital can spill over to external online communities. Focusing on the long-term implications of these manifestations of social capital, we empirically assess whether they can increase funding success beyond a single campaign. We test our hypotheses with two data sets derived from platform and survey sources and find support for the proposed relationships.
Many entrepreneurs are struggling with the question of how to deliver a successful fund-raising pitch on crowdfunding platforms. In this study, we focus on the linguistic style of crowdfunding pitches and how such a style relates to the success in raising funds. Based on the language expectancy theory, we hypothesize that the importance of linguistic style depends on whether an entrepreneur belongs to an emergent category of new ventures (social entrepreneurs) or to an established category (commercial entrepreneurs). In particular, social entrepreneurs need to compensate for their incomplete social categorization and the related ill-formed expectations by relying more extensively on linguistic style to attract funding. Empirical analyses of 656 Kickstarter campaigns demonstrate that linguistic styles that make the campaigns and their founders more understandable and relatable to the crowd boost the success of social campaigns, but hardly matter for commercial campaigns.
This study draws upon affective events theory, research regarding funders' perceptions, and research regarding expectation alignment between products and their presenters to develop and test an indirect effects model of crowdfunding resource allocation decisions. To test our hypothesized relationships, we drew upon a sample of 102 participants who each assessed ten different product pitches made by ten different entrepreneurs. Results from the study indicate that perceived product creativity is positively related to crowdfunding performance, both directly and indirectly, via positive affective reactions of prospective funders. Moreover, we find the indirect effect of product creativity is contingent upon the extent to which funders perceive an entrepreneur to be passionate, such that perceived entrepreneurial passion increases the positive nature of the indirect effect. Implications for future theory development, empirical research and implications for practitioners are discussed as well.
This study examined relationships of the dark triad personality characteristics (i.e., narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism) with entrepreneurial intentions and motives. Results from samples of business undergraduates (N = 508) and MBA students (N = 234) found narcissism to be positively related to entrepreneurial intentions. In addition, results from subgroups of business undergraduates and MBA students high in entrepreneurial intentions (i.e., early-stage nascent entrepreneurs) indicated differences in motives for engaging in the startup process. Specifically, we found all facets of the dark triad to be positively associated with unproductive entrepreneurial motives, and observed differential associations of the dark triad characteristics with productive entrepreneurial motives.
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 U.S. collective entrepreneurial optimism influence venture creation and growth using 1993–2010 NFIB entrepreneurial optimism data. Results indicate that collective entrepreneurial optimism exhibits a curvilinear relationship with venture creation and growth, which is moderated by environmental dynamism. We validate the NFIB measure by constructing an alternative measure of collective entrepreneurial optimism using media reports.
The changing nature of work suggests that young people may face the prospect of a “portfolio” career including periods of paid employment, nonwork and selfemployment, of which the latter implies greater scope for entrepreneurial activity. Reports questionnaire surveys of young adults which examine their attitudes to entrepreneurship as a career. Reference is also made to current policy initiatives and entrepreneurship education in the UK. The findings suggest that generally positive images of entrepreneurship are hampered by a lack of identifiable role models, poor media presentation of individuals or small firms, and lack of encouragement from important influencers on career choice such as teachers and career guidance specialists. University courses have their limitations but can have a role in providing a useful insight into the challenges involved in being an entrepreneur and also encouraging skill development and selfreliance.
This research assessed the internal structure and validity of the Narcissistic Inventory-Revised (NI-R). As described by the authors, its 42 items resulted in a single total score measuring vulnerable narcissism but in fact showing correlations with both grandiose and vulnerable narcissism. In two studies (total N = 1733), we present the new three-factor structure of the established NI-R consisting of Admiration, Pretension, and Mistrust. The structure proved to be replicable and reliable. As criteria for assessing the construct validity of the NI-R, we applied the Narcissistic Admiration and Rivalry Questionnaire, which measures grandiose narcissism, and the Brief Pathological Narcissism Inventory, which measures vulnerable narcissism. Both inventories are recent developments whose factor structures have been demonstrated to be generally replicable in this research. The proposed dimensions of the NI-R showed differential correlations with these measures as well as with the external criteria of life satisfaction and emotion regulation strategies. However, the overlap between the NI-R dimensions with the measures of grandiose and vulnerable narcissism is limited, suggesting that the NI-R might capture aspects of narcissism beyond these two facets.
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 overcome some of the known deficiencies in existing measurement approaches, we have lagged behind in regard to assessing the technique’s measurement rigor. Our article addresses this knowledge gap and describes important implications for past as well as future research using CATA. First, we describe three sources of measurement error variance that are particularly relevant to studies using CATA: transient error, specific factor error, and algorithm error. Second, we describe and demonstrate how to calculate measurement error variance with the entrepreneurial orientation, market orientation, and organizational ambidexterity constructs, offering evidence that past substantive conclusions have been underestimated. Third, we offer best-practice recommendations and demonstrate how to reduce measurement error variance by refining existing CATA measures. In short, we demonstrate that although measurement error variance in CATA has not been measured thus far, it does exist and it affects substantive conclusions. Consequently, our article has implications for theory and practice, as well as how to assess and minimize measurement error in future CATA research with the goal of improving the accuracy of substantive conclusions.
Research has consistently demonstrated that organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) produce a wide array of positive outcomes for employees and organizations. Recent work, however, has suggested that employees often engage in OCBs not because they want to but because they feel they have to, and it is not clear whether OCBs performed for external motives have the same positive effects on individuals and organizational functioning as do traditional OCBs. In this article, we draw from selfdetermination and moral licensing theories to suggest a potential negative consequence of OCB. Specifically, we argue that when employees feel compelled to engage in OCB by external forces, they will subsequently feel psychologically entitled for having gone above and beyond the call of duty. Furthermore, these feelings of entitlement can act as moral credentials that psychologically free employees to engage in both interpersonal and organizational deviance. Data from two multisource field studies and an online experiment provide support for these hypotheses. In addition, we demonstrate that OCB-generated feelings of entitlement transcend organizational boundaries and lead to deviance outside of the organization.
Jezebel's sexual lasciviousness, Mammy's devotion, and Sapphire's outspoken anger-these are among the most persistent stereotypes that black women encounter in contemporary American life. Hurtful and dishonest, such representations force African American women to navigate a virtual crooked room that shames them and shapes their experiences as citizens. Many respond by assuming a mantle of strength that may convince others, and even themselves, that they do not need help. But as a result, the unique political issues of black women are often ignored and marginalized. In this groundbreaking book, Melissa V. Harris-Perry uses multiple methods of inquiry, including literary analysis, political theory, focus groups, surveys, and experimental research, to understand more deeply black women's political and emotional responses to pervasive negative race and gender images. Not a traditional political science work concerned with office-seeking, voting, or ideology, Sister Citizen instead explores how African American women understand themselves as citizens and what they expect from political organizing. Harris-Perry shows that the shared struggle to preserve an authentic self and secure recognition as a citizen links together black women in America, from the anonymous survivors of Hurricane Katrina to the current First Lady of the United States.
Narcissism has become an increasingly popular research topic in recent years. We describe why it is beneficial for organizational researchers to study narcissism due to its two strongest organizational correlates: counterproductive work behavior and leadership. We explore why narcissists perform counterproductive work behavior and offer advice on what organizations can do to prevent narcissists' counterproductivity. Subsequently, we discuss narcissism's relationship with leadership effectiveness, and propose a Narcissistic Leaders and Dominance Complementarity Model, which examines the dynamic interaction of narcissistic leaders' characteristics with those of their followers to predict leadership effectiveness. Finally, we suggest four areas of management that may benefit from incorporating narcissism as a determinant of their respective organizational outcomes of interest: international management, social issues in management/corporate social responsibility, entrepreneurship, and negotiation.
Intercultural tensions and conflicts are inevitable in the global workplace. This article introduces the concept of ambient cultural disharmony-indirect experience of intercultural tensions and conflicts in individuals' immediate social environment-and demonstrates how it undermines creative thinking in tasks that draw on knowledge from multiple cultures. Three studies (a network survey and two experiments) showed that ambient cultural disharmony decreased individuals' effectiveness at connecting ideas from disparate cultures. Beliefs that ideas from different cultures are incompatible mediated the relationship between ambient cultural disharmony and creativity. Alternative mechanisms such as negative affect and cognitive disruption were not viable mediators. Although ambient cultural disharmony disrupted creativity, ambient cultural harmony did not promote creativity. These findings have theoretical and practical implications for research in workplace diversity and creativity.
Extant research has shown that firms with high levels of entrepreneurial orientation (EO) outperform competitors. The present study sheds light on this performance relationship in large, publicly listed high-tech firms by examining whether the strength of this relationship depends upon the CEO’s narcissism, an executive personality trait recently debated controversially in both academic and practitioner publications. A theoretically derived research model is empirically validated by means of multisource secondary data for 41 S&P 500 firms from 2005 to 2007. Findings indicate that narcissistic CEOs usually weaken the EO-performance relationship, although the opposite is true under some conditions, such as in highly concentrated and dynamic markets.
We advance a model that highlights contingent linkages between overconfidence and narcissism, entrepreneurial entry, and the successful realization of venture opportunities. Overall, our proposals point to a paradox in which entrepreneurs high in overconfidence and narcissism are propelled toward more novel venture contexts-where these qualities are most detrimental to venture success-and are repelled from more familiar venture contexts-where these qualities are least harmful and may even facilitate venture success. To illuminate these patterns of misalignment, we attend to the defining characteristics of alternative venture contexts and the focal constructs of overconfidence and narcissism.