Journal of Business Venturing最新文献

{"title":"False signaling by platform team members and post-campaign venture outcomes: Evidence from an equity crowdfunding platform","authors":"Virginie Mataigne , Michele Meoli , Tom Vanacker , Silvio Vismara","doi":"10.1016/j.jbusvent.2024.106457","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jbusvent.2024.106457","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In equity crowdfunding (ECF), early investments serve as signals of venture potential to prospective investors, making them more likely to join an offering. We argue that ECF platform team members can exploit this mechanism and convey false signals to unsophisticated investors. Data from a prominent ECF platform indicate that platform team members “invest” in ventures that exhibit weaker post-campaign outcomes. However, in ventures that successfully fundraise, platform team members typically withdraw their investment (after it incentivized others to join), and these ventures show even weaker post-campaign outcomes. Finally, ventures' post-campaign outcomes are particularly weak when this “invest-and-withdraw” tactic is executed by the platform's upper echelons, whose investments can further be perceived as endorsement signals by the crowd, despite significant goal incongruence between the upper echelons and the crowd. Our study presents novel theoretical and empirical insights into the signaling, financial misconduct, and ECF literature, and holds important policy implications.</div></div><div><h3>Executive summary</h3><div>Past research has shown that equity crowdfunding (ECF) platforms can reduce agency problems between entrepreneurs and ECF investors, such as adverse selection problems, by providing selection and due diligence activities. In other words, past research has focused on the bright side of ECF platforms. However, this study focuses on a possible dark side of ECF platforms. The paper investigates the practice of ECF platform team members fabricating support (i.e., using an invest-and-withdraw tactic) towards firms with weaker prospects listed on their own platform.</div><div>ECF platform team members can use an invest-and-withdraw tactic in firms with weaker prospects. Indeed, through their investments, ECF platform team members influence early investments, which are often used by prospective ECF investors as a quality signal to influence their own investment decisions. However, platform team members then withdraw their investments (after their investment lured follow-on investors to the offering). As such, platform team members convey false signals to unsophisticated ECF investors. The paper highlights an underexplored agency problem between ECF platforms and investors, where platform goals (such as higher platform fundraising success rates and increasing revenue generation, which require platforms where more deals get done) may conflict with investor interests.</div><div>Theoretically, these agency problems and the fact that one can withdraw investments at zero cost during a cooling-off period may explain why ECF platform team members engage in false signaling to support firms with weaker prospects. More specifically, we expect that platform team members will invest in firms with weaker post-campaign prospects. Also, their investment withdrawals are expected to be especially correlated with weaker post-campaign venture o","PeriodicalId":51348,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Business Venturing","volume":"40 1","pages":"Article 106457"},"PeriodicalIF":7.7,"publicationDate":"2024-11-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142696692","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Funding-source-induced bias: How social ties influence entrepreneurs' anticipated guilt and risk-taking preferences","authors":"Emily Neubert ,&nbsp;Greg Fisher ,&nbsp;Donald F. Kuratko ,&nbsp;Regan Stevenson","doi":"10.1016/j.jbusvent.2024.106453","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jbusvent.2024.106453","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Raising money from family and friends is a common form of startup funding. However, we know little about how accepting funds from these individuals influences an entrepreneur's risk-taking preferences. We theorize that as an entrepreneur's relationship with an investor strengthens, the entrepreneur is more likely to anticipate guilt that could emerge from a potential venture failure, which prompts the entrepreneur to make more conservative venture growth decisions. We test our model using a quasi-experimental vignette-based approach. Based on the results, we argue that the tendency for an entrepreneur to become more risk averse in their entrepreneurial decision making due to feelings of anticipated guilt after receiving funding from strong ties demonstrates a <em>funding-source-induced bias</em>.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51348,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Business Venturing","volume":"40 1","pages":"Article 106453"},"PeriodicalIF":7.7,"publicationDate":"2024-10-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142560881","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Effect of venture capital investment horizon on new product development: Evidence from the medical device sector","authors":"Moonsik Shin ,&nbsp;Joonhyung Bae ,&nbsp;Umit Ozmel","doi":"10.1016/j.jbusvent.2024.106454","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jbusvent.2024.106454","url":null,"abstract":"&lt;div&gt;&lt;div&gt;Drawing on entrepreneurial financing literature, we investigate how venture capital (VC) firms' investment horizons affect their ventures' product quality problems. We argue that when a VC firm has a short investment horizon, it may guide its portfolio companies to develop new products fast to increase the likelihood of successful exits. However, this deliberate effort may act as a double-edged sword for ventures. That is, VC firms' guidance on product commercialization could inadvertently expose ventures to product quality problems. Building on this notion, we suggest that ventures backed by VC firms with short investment horizons may experience more product quality problems than those backed by VC firms with long investment horizons. We further suggest that the effect of a VC firm's investment horizon on product quality problems is mitigated when the venture is invested by corporate VC investors but amplified when the venture develops complex products. We test our hypotheses using a dataset on product recalls of VC-backed ventures in the U.S. medical device industry.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;h3&gt;Executive summary&lt;/h3&gt;&lt;div&gt;The success and survival of new ventures largely depend on their ability to develop and commercialize innovative products. Due to their limited resources, these ventures often seek support from venture capital (VC) investors. However, the involvement of VC investors can be a double-edged sword, as their focus on timely (or even accelerated) product introduction may lead to unforeseen problems. This occurs because VC firms may adopt different approaches to supporting ventures in new product development, depending on their investment horizons, which are constrained by their contractual obligations to their limited partners (LPs). Specifically, VC firms with long investment horizons may allow their portfolio companies to have sufficient time to develop new products. In contrast, VC firms with short investment horizons may be under time pressure and guide their portfolio companies to speed up the product development process to increase the chances of ventures' exits within a limited timeline.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;Building on this notion, we examine how the investment horizons of VC investors impact ventures' product quality problems. Ventures invested by VC firms with short investment horizons may face pressure to accelerate the new product development process, preventing the ventures from engaging in time-intensive learning processes necessary for cultivating new technological and market knowledge. Therefore, we propose that ventures invested by VC firms with short investment horizons may experience more product quality problems than those invested by VC firms with long investment horizons. We further propose two boundary conditions to validate our theoretical mechanisms. First, we suggest that the negative effect of VC investors' time horizons on product quality problems is mitigated by the presence of corporate VC (CVC) firms in the inve","PeriodicalId":51348,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Business Venturing","volume":"40 1","pages":"Article 106454"},"PeriodicalIF":7.7,"publicationDate":"2024-10-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142553400","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Echoes of the past: The long-lasting effects of entrepreneurs' generational imprints on value-creation models","authors":"Ileana Maldonado-Bautista ,&nbsp;Paul Sanchez-Ruiz ,&nbsp;Annaleena Parhankangas ,&nbsp;Karen Watkins","doi":"10.1016/j.jbusvent.2024.106452","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jbusvent.2024.106452","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We draw from theories of generations and imprinting to introduce an alternative conceptualization of the effects of age on entrepreneurship—namely, entrepreneurs' generational imprints. We theorize how imprinted characteristics of entrepreneurs from a conservative generation (vs. a progressive generation) are positively (negatively) associated with higher levels of financial returns and negatively (positively) associated with higher engagement in corporate social responsibility. In two studies in the Mexican context, we find that entrepreneurs from a conservative generation create more financial value than social value, while entrepreneurs from a progressive generation create more social value than financial value. We also explore the intervening mechanisms and find that entrepreneurs who are more embedded in the church and their families and have more family obligations are more likely to experience generational imprinting. We further show that women tend to experience generational imprinting differently than men, leading to important heterogeneity in our results. Finally, we find that older entrepreneurs experience generational imprints more acutely than their counterparts. Overall, this study provides new insights into entrepreneurs' generational imprints and demonstrates how and why generational imprinting matters in entrepreneurial research.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51348,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Business Venturing","volume":"40 1","pages":"Article 106452"},"PeriodicalIF":7.7,"publicationDate":"2024-09-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142356713","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Legitimately distinct entrepreneurial stories in evolving market categories","authors":"Shannon Younger ,&nbsp;Jonathan Preedom ,&nbsp;Chad Navis","doi":"10.1016/j.jbusvent.2024.106436","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jbusvent.2024.106436","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>We develop a theoretical framework explaining how the evolving uncertainty imperatives of the <em>nascent</em>, <em>emerging</em>, and <em>mature</em> stages of a market category influence the entrepreneurial stories that audiences judge as legitimately distinct. Our focus is on the sensemaking role of different story components in shaping these judgments, both independently and through their holistic interplay. We also relate these story components to the broader issues that audiences seek to resolve at each stage, which affects their potential resonance. This framework provides a contextualized understanding of legitimate distinctiveness and identifies unique tensions in each stage of an evolving market category, offering a valuable integration and advancement of existing scholarship.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":51348,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Business Venturing","volume":"40 1","pages":"Article 106436"},"PeriodicalIF":7.7,"publicationDate":"2024-09-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142271332","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Financing decentralized digital platform growth: The role of crypto funds in blockchain-based startups","authors":"Douglas Cumming ,&nbsp;Wolfgang Drobetz ,&nbsp;Paul P. Momtaz ,&nbsp;Niclas Schermann","doi":"10.1016/j.jbusvent.2024.106450","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jbusvent.2024.106450","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Coordination frictions prevent the efficient adoption and governance of blockchain-based platforms. Crypto funds (CFs) create value by smoothing frictions on decentralized digital platforms (DDPs). CF-backed DDPs obtain higher valuations in the primary token market, outperform their peers after issuing tokens, and benefit from token price appreciation around CF investment disclosure in the secondary market. Primary transaction data from the Ethereum ledger shows that the valuations of DDPs with meager adoption and a higher centralization of token ownership benefit more from CF backing. The positive valuation and performance effects for CF-backed DDPs are more pronounced for CFs that are more central in investor networks.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":51348,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Business Venturing","volume":"40 1","pages":"Article 106450"},"PeriodicalIF":7.7,"publicationDate":"2024-09-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0883902624000727/pdfft?md5=ab561e9d588a054543613f704b3f2182&pid=1-s2.0-S0883902624000727-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142271331","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Innovation at the interface: A configurational approach to corporate venture capital","authors":"Magnus Schückes ,&nbsp;Benedikt Unger ,&nbsp;Tobias Gutmann ,&nbsp;Gerwin Fels","doi":"10.1016/j.jbusvent.2024.106438","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jbusvent.2024.106438","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>This study explores how corporate venture capital (CVC) units can be configured to effectively achieve innovation performance and succeed amidst the tensions they face at the intersection of the corporate and venture domain. Using a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) of 30 dedicated CVC investment arms, we analyze how successful units configure their internal arrangements in response to these tensions and generate various innovation outcomes for their parent organizations. We identify four different solutions for effective CVC unit configurations, highlighting that explorative and exploitative innovation success require different setups. Moreover, we find that more mature and explorative CVC units distance themselves via buffering from their corporate sponsor, while at the same time increasing their efforts to maintain deliberate connections via bridging to representatives of the very same corporate environment they stem from. For ambidextrous CVC units, a more dynamic setup that allows corporate leadership to selectively initiate collaboration with the corporate core when beneficial while facilitating distancing at other times proved successful. Our study contributes new evidence and theory on how CVC units can navigate tensions and balance competing demands at the interface of the corporate and venturing domains.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":51348,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Business Venturing","volume":"40 1","pages":"Article 106438"},"PeriodicalIF":7.7,"publicationDate":"2024-09-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0883902624000600/pdfft?md5=1bef59e12260479a685a4dea214927d9&pid=1-s2.0-S0883902624000600-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142271447","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A listening model of venture growth: entrepreneurs' listening abilities and ventures' listening capabilities","authors":"Dean A. Shepherd ,&nbsp;Jeffrey M. Pollack","doi":"10.1016/j.jbusvent.2024.106451","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jbusvent.2024.106451","url":null,"abstract":"&lt;div&gt;&lt;p&gt;While we understand the importance of entrepreneurs listening to stakeholders, we lack a sufficient theory-driven understanding of why some entrepreneurs and their ventures can listen to their stakeholders more effectively than others. We offer a listening model of venture growth based on listening theories and the literatures on new ventures and capability development. Listening is initially facilitated by entrepreneurs' cognitive and behavioral processes, but continued venture growth creates a paradox for entrepreneurs. Listening to stakeholders may also deplete entrepreneurs' personal resources, diminishing their listening capacity. This paradox can be overcome by generating their ventures' listening capability—behavioral routines and attention structures for listening—enabling them to acquire and interpret quality information from stakeholders more effectively to build or adapt the capabilities necessary for venture growth. The ventures' listening capability acts as a dynamic capability, which itself can be dynamic. This listening model of venture growth contributes to the entrepreneurship literature on stakeholders, entrepreneurs' abilities, and ventures' capabilities and dynamic capabilities.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;h3&gt;Executive summary&lt;/h3&gt;&lt;p&gt;Entrepreneurs need to acquire resources from stakeholders to create and grow their ventures. Therefore, stakeholder enrollment is a critical task for entrepreneurs. The predominant research on stakeholder enrollment has been on entrepreneurs' overt behaviors to secure the support of stakeholders—a unidirectional communication pattern in which entrepreneurs communicate to audiences and stakeholders listen to and decide whether to commit their resources to ventures. However, entrepreneurs need to communicate and listen to their stakeholders. Although scholars recognize the importance of entrepreneurs listening to stakeholders, we lack sufficient understanding of why some entrepreneurs and their ventures can listen to their stakeholders more effectively than others and thus acquire and use stakeholder support critical for venture growth. Therefore, we ask, Why are some entrepreneurial actors more effective at listening to stakeholders than others?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;To address this question, we integrate theories of listening and the literatures on new ventures and the creation of organizational capabilities to develop a listening model of venture growth. This model explains the importance and the limitations of entrepreneurs' listening ability in acquiring and interpreting stakeholder information for venture growth. Venture members can learn from and formalize entrepreneurs' listening ability to build ventures' listening capability, which overcomes the entrepreneurs' listening limitations. Ventures' listening capability includes acquiring and interpreting stakeholder information to inform and/or change additional capabilities critical for venture growth.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Specifically, the model begins with communication from st","PeriodicalId":51348,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Business Venturing","volume":"40 1","pages":"Article 106451"},"PeriodicalIF":7.7,"publicationDate":"2024-09-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142240827","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Para-social mentoring: The effects of entrepreneurship influencers on entrepreneurs","authors":"Laura D'Oria ,&nbsp;David J. Scheaf ,&nbsp;Timothy L. Michaelis ,&nbsp;Michael P. Lerman","doi":"10.1016/j.jbusvent.2024.106439","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jbusvent.2024.106439","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Research on social media influencers and entrepreneurship tends to adopt an influencer-as-entrepreneur perspective by examining how influencers leverage social media as entrepreneurial opportunities. However, it remains unclear how entrepreneurs in the audience interpret and leverage influencer content in their entrepreneurial endeavors. Using a two-study approach, Study 1 inductively uncovers that entrepreneurs interpret entrepreneurship influencers' content as para-social mentoring—a one-to-many, mostly unreciprocated mentor-protégé relationship in which media users envision themselves as protégés and perceive media figures as providing individualized career-related and psychosocial support despite knowing that the media figures do not know intimate details about themselves or their circumstances. Our model posits that para-social mentoring between entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship influencers relates to critical entrepreneurship-related outcomes. Using data from 613 entrepreneurs, Study 2 deductively finds general support for the model derived from Study 1. Our study highlights how para-social mentoring operates like a double-edged sword that can benefit entrepreneurs while also exposing them to specific hazards not common in traditional mentoring.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":51348,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Business Venturing","volume":"40 1","pages":"Article 106439"},"PeriodicalIF":7.7,"publicationDate":"2024-09-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142230117","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The body as a cultural resource for entrepreneurs in stigmatized settings: The case of sex toys by women for women","authors":"Neva Bojovic ,&nbsp;Raghu Garud ,&nbsp;Mohammed Cheded","doi":"10.1016/j.jbusvent.2024.106449","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jbusvent.2024.106449","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Entrepreneurs seeking legitimacy for their stigmatized products with mainstream audiences must deploy strategies to redefine their products' cultural significance. This paper investigates how the body, often a focal point of stigma, serves as the foundation for these strategies. Through an analysis of exemplary cases in the sex toy industry, we identify three strategies—visibilizing, obfuscating, and transforming—used by entrepreneurs to deal with different sources of stigma, including tribal stigma, blemishes, and abominations associated with the products. Our findings provide novel insights into the role of the body in entrepreneurial strategies to tackle stigma and gain legitimacy for their products, thereby contributing to the literatures on entrepreneurship in stigmatized settings and cultural entrepreneurship.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":51348,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Business Venturing","volume":"40 1","pages":"Article 106449"},"PeriodicalIF":7.7,"publicationDate":"2024-09-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142172365","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}