Knowledge that Transforms

• We examine how entrepreneurs disclosing their own personal flaws shapes investment. • Disclosure effects depend on flaw type and the flaws of the investor. • Disclosing agency-excess flaws fails to increase either closeness or investment. • Disclosing agency-deficit flaws can increase closeness and investment. • Disclosing agency-deficit flaws has positive effects only among similar investors. When entrepreneurs pitch to investors, is it wise for them to disclose their flaws or should they rather not admit any weaknesses? Combining research in entrepreneurial finance with social comparison theory, we put forth a new conceptual model about when disclosing flaws elicits psychological closeness and results in investment. We distinguish between two types of flaws ( agency-excess and agency-deficit ) and consider the similarity between entrepreneurs and potential investors in these flaws. A field study and several experiments generally support our model. Disclosing agency-excess flaws does not generate closeness or elicit investment, even when investors possess the same flaw. Disclosing agency-deficit flaws can generate closeness and result in investment, but only among investors who possess the same flaw. Our research contributes to the entrepreneurial finance literature by showing nuanced effects concerning how flaw disclosures relate to investments; we also show that similarities between entrepreneurs and investors do not always pay off.

• Long pauses while speaking tend to elicit negative impressions of communicators. • Brief pauses elicit assents (e.g., “yeah” or “uh-huh”) in collaborative dialogue. • Assents foster positive perceptions of speakers. • Pausing in collaborative conversations can make communicators seem more helpful. Communicators benefit from being perceived as helpful in collaborative conversations. While research has found that actions preceding such conversations can impact how communicators are perceived, less is known about how speaking style shapes such perceptions. Might how communicators talk (i.e., how often they pause) influence how helpful they seem? Though speakers who spend more time in silence while talking are often perceived negatively, we suggest that brief pauses while speaking can be beneficial. Specifically, we argue that pausing encourages verbal assents from conversation partners (e.g., “yeah” or “uh-huh”), which leads them to perceive speakers more positively. A multi-method study of collaborative conversations, including an analysis of customer service calls and two experiments manipulating pause frequency, supports this account. Although long silences can have impression management drawbacks, our findings indicate that, in collaborative conversations, brief pauses while speaking can make a person seem more helpful because they encourage conversation partners to assent.

Employees’ creative ideas often require managerial endorsement to be implemented. It is therefore important to understand factors that impact managers’ willingness to endorse their employees’ creative ideas. We investigate the role of social status dynamics and test two main hypotheses. First, we find managers lose more status for endorsing an idea that fails than they gain for endorsing an idea that succeeds (asymmetric status change hypothesis). Second, we find managers’ status gain for endorsing an idea that succeeds is smaller than the idea generating employee’s status gain, producing a status distance loss (status distance hypothesis). We characterize these findings as the idea endorser’s dilemma . Study 1 tested these hypotheses and Studies 2A-B tested boundary conditions of perceiver role and idea creativity. Study 3 investigated an attribution search mechanism, finding that the status change patterns were attenuated by a prompt that drew attention to the manager’s contributions. Study 4 found that managers are intuitively aware of these status dynamics and anticipate not only no status loss for rejecting an idea, but also a status distance gain over the employee whose idea they rejected. We discuss implications for creativity research and for implementing creative ideas in organizations.