Knowledge that Transforms

Hype is a collective vision and promise of a possible future, around which attention, excitement, and expectations increase over time (Logue & Grimes, 2022). Entrepreneurs employ cultural strategies, using framing to legitimize their endeavors and sustain the surrounding hype. Despite the importance of media in entrepreneurial hype, extant literature has yet to investigate media framing devices and how they shape and inform social expectations in the hype cycle. We also know that framing efforts are shaped by discursive struggles between actors (Kriechbaum et al., 2021) and that under-represented social groups are more constrained by dominant discourses. Yet, extant literature on entrepreneurial hype has thus far undertheorized power and inequality. We focus on one under-represented group - women – as they embody a glaring example of how media influence the social expectations associated with their entrepreneurial endeavors. Specifically, this study investigates how the media employ framing devices to generate social expectations for non-dominant groups (women entrepreneurs in our case) - and shape the hype cycle. To do so, we empirically analyze the evolution of the ‘girlboss’ hype, through a content analysis of 2671 media articles. Our contributions advance studies on entrepreneurial hype by explicating the role of media in the construction of hype. We contend that gender affords a critical power lens in the study of entrepreneurial hype that can be transferred to other contexts mired by inequality. We advance that feminist interrogations of media and entrepreneurship can contribute to understanding and addressing issues beyond gender. • Media framing devices are highlighted as driving forces of hype and contributing to the transition from "boom" to "bust" in hype cycles • Research on entrepreneurial hype privileges entrepreneurs framing efforts. We lack insights on media framing efforts • A post-feminist and neoliberal lens enhances our understanding of the implications of the cultural narrative surrounding women entrepreneurs and how they are often ‘designed to fail’. • Post-feminist theoretical approaches provide opportunities for the study of entrepreneurship and inequality

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. Executive summary 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. 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 investment syndicate. As CVC firms have long investment horizons and pursue strategic goals, they can counterbalance the influence of VC firms with short investment horizons on ventures' product development process. Second, we suggest that the complexity of the products developed by ventures amplifies the impact of VC firms' investment horizons on product quality problems. This is because complex products require more time for intensive learning and information processing, making ventures particularly susceptible to product quality problems when under time pressure. To test these arguments, we use the data on product recalls of VC-backed ventures in the U.S. medical device industry. We also incorporate insights from interviews with venture capitalists and entrepreneurs to validate our arguments. This study enhances our understanding of how partner-specific characteristics (VC firms' investment horizons in our context) affect private ventures' development paths and outcomes. By highlighting the tradeoffs associated with VC funding, we provide a more balanced perspective to the literature on VC investments, which has predominantly emphasized the benefits of VC investment. Our arguments and findings suggest that the time pressure faced by VC investors can be transferred to ventures, potentially resulting in unexpected product quality problems.

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. 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. 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. 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 outcomes. Finally, the investments of the platform’s upper echelons are expected to be particularly correlated with weaker post-campaign outcomes. Empirically, we use unique data from a leading ECF platform from a country with developed financial markets. The paper provides empirical support for the above expectations and underscores the need for policy attention to mitigate such possible misconduct. The goals of ECF platform team members are unlikely to always align with what ECF investors want. More specifically, ECF platform team members can use private information and exploit rules meant to protect buyers online (i.e., the cooling-off period, which allows for investment withdrawals at no cost) to support the fundraising of firms with weaker prospects on their platform. Our research adds to the signaling literature by highlighting false signals conveyed by ECF platform team members and especially the upper echelon members. The paper further contributes to the misconduct literature in entrepreneurial finance, which has mostly focused on entrepreneur and/or investor misconduct, while we focused on possible misconduct by platform team members who are generally viewed as benign. It focuses on an underexplored agency problem in entrepreneurial finance between platforms and ECF investors. The paper also adds to the ECF literature by providing novel insights into post-campaign venture outcomes. Finally, the paper further contributes to the discussion about the need for better regulations in ECF markets. More transparent information and limiting the possibility of invest-and-withdraw tactics might help channel funds to the most promising ventures, ultimately providing added value for the economy and ensuring the long-term prospects of the ECF market. • Equity crowdfunding platform team members frequently use an invest-and-withdraw tactic. • Ventures in which platform team members invest exhibit weaker post-campaign outcomes. • When platform team members withdraw the investments (after attracting others) ventures show even weaker ex-post outcomes. • Investments by the platform’s upper echelons are highly negatively associated with weaker post-campaign venture outcomes. • New insights into the signaling literature, by revealing the occurrence of false signaling by platform team members.

How can communities be active to create and scale opportunities for sustainable small and local businesses? We address this question through a longitudinal study of a community-based initiative, which promoted sustainability in food production and consumption and has scaled to different communities worldwide. To improve our understanding of the entrepreneurial role of communities, we observed how communities proactively engaged in processes evolving from replicating and developing community ventures to scaling community movement over time. Through these processes, we identified three mechanisms— infrastructure shift , nurturing , and sustaining infrastructure . Our research extends current theories of community-based entrepreneurship by offering a process perspective at the community level and elaborating how communities collectively create and scale opportunities for sustainable small and local businesses, allowing an idea to evolve from a small initiative to a large movement.

This study offers novel insights into how team structure and flexibility affect pivoting. It details how founding team coordination practices shape individual and collective sensemaking of feedback and efforts to improve a venture idea. Following seven founding teams, we identified how teams with overlapping responsibilities enjoyed the flexibility of both fragmented and holistic sensemaking. This enabled them to pivot when needed but otherwise persevere with their venture idea. In contrast, teams with clear separation of responsibilities engaged in fragmented sensemaking and only persevered with their idea. Our findings advance research on founding team coordination, pivoting, and teams' understanding of their venture ideas. • Overlapping responsibilities allow teams to remain flexible. • Only teams with overlapping responsibilities use both structured and unstructured spaces to coordinate their sensemaking. • Fragmented and holistic sensemaking may result in different idea development outcomes. • Understandings of venture ideas may differ within founding teams at times. • Pivoting emerges from layering and recombining team members' different holistic understandings.

We develop a theoretical framework explaining how the evolving uncertainty imperatives of the nascent, emerging, and mature 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.

When various forms of crisis hit, they can stimulate changes in entrepreneurial agency – the capacity to act (or choose not to) – and the actions entrepreneurs take to mitigate the threats and pursue the new opportunities those crises create. While assessing articles for the Journal of Business Venturing's annual “Best Paper” award, we observed this to be a recurring theme across a significant number of the studies published in 2024. Inspired by this research, we summarize the 17 articles that explored this theme and develop a framework that highlights material, relational, and discursive concerns brought about by crises. In response entrepreneurs across individual or collective levels take action to preserve or cultivate distinct forms of entrepreneurial agency – adaptive, allied, and censored – and to resolve various paradoxes of entrepreneurial agency. We close with a brief discussion of the growing relevance of a social symbolic lens in reconciling how entrepreneurs construe and respond to crises and how the specific forms of agency and paradox identified could inform theory both within and beyond entrepreneurship. Executive summary This article began as a search for the “Best Paper” published in Journal of Business Venturing (JBV) in 2024. The editor-in-chief selected a panel of editors who then reviewed each of the 49 articles published in volume 39, issues 1–6, to identify those that were bold, broad, and rigorous. We arrived at a shortlist of five articles that best exemplified these criteria, from which the entire JBV editorial team voted for the winner: “Sight unseen: The visibility paradox of entrepreneurship in an informal economy,” by Robert Nason, Siddharth Vedula, Joel Bothello, Sophie Bacq, and Andrew Charman. In addition to enabling the selection of a best paper, this process revealed a common theme cutting across more than one-third of the articles published throughout the year; namely, “how entrepreneurs exercise agency in response to crises.” Traditionally, crises have been defined as periods of turmoil that disrupt patterns of economic activities and represent acute potential threats to the livelihoods of those affected. Over the past decade, however, scholars (both within and outside the field of entrepreneurship) have gradually shifted attention from single, separate, and short-lasting episodes that momentarily disrupt entrepreneurial endeavors (Doern et al., 2016) to plural, entangled and long-lasting combinations, sometimes referred to as poly-crises (Klyver and McMullen, 2025). To consider both conceptualizations, we take a broader perspective of crisis, using the term holistically to include both acute and enduring widespread structural challenges. We reason that, by defying conformity and attempting actions that question a society's taken for granted assumptions about how the world works, entrepreneurs embody and enact a paradox of agency in which restrictions on their capacity to act – which dispirit, discourage, or even devastate most people – instead stimulate them to seek to preserve or cultivate their agency not only by mitigating the threats that crises can pose, but also by leveraging them as opportunities to improve their situation. We proceed as follows. After a brief introduction, we summarize how each individual article reflects and contributes unique insights to the overarching theme of exercising entrepreneurial agency in response to crises. Grouping the articles according to the type of crisis examined, we sensitize ourselves to the underlying mechanisms that entrepreneurs use in response by adopting a social symbolic lens (Lawrence and Phillips, 2019). Specifically, we hone our attention to the relative importance and interplay of material, relational, and discursive dimensions of social symbolic work as entrepreneurs construe and respond to different types of crises. We suggest that entrepreneurs encounter various limitations to and paradoxes of agency that they seek to resolve by adapting, allying, or censoring their capacity to act. Finally, we conclude by articulating potential avenues for scholars to elaborate on this tri-dimensional approach to entrepreneurial agency both within and beyond entrepreneurship theory and practice.

• The paper explains why atypical nascent entrepreneurs may not receive the feedback they need for elaborating a venture idea. • The paper shows that a Black/White woman nascent entrepreneur is likely to be sanctioned for entering a profession with which she is seen as incongruent. • Although both are atypical entrepreneurs, nascent Black and White women entrepreneurs are associated with different stereotypes and receive different types of venture-related feedback. • Feedback providers are influenced by ingroup consensus, which can reduce their susceptibility to social stereotypes.

Research on how to slow, halt, and reverse aging processes is making progress. Pharmaceutical, big-tech, and venture capital companies and their owners are making considerable investments in potential ( epi )genetic, molecular, cellular, and organ-based interventions and therapies. This essay considers implications for entrepreneurship in the case that such interventions would eventually result in a doubling of the human healthspan. A vastly extended middle age would imply potential changes in opportunities, the future time perspective of entrepreneurs, the pace of time as experienced by entrepreneurs, and the relationship between age and entrepreneurial success. The essay also outlines a range of wider considerations. The final section ties the essay together by discussing how entrepreneurship scholarship can help move the longevity domain forward. • How would entrepreneurship be affected if the human healthspan would double? • The essay draws a range of implications for entrepreneurship. • The essay considers a number of wider considerations pertaining to a doubled healthspan. • The essay considers how entrepreneurship scholarship can assist the longevity domain. • The essay aims to pro-actively discuss the future impact of a new technology.

This paper shows that angel investor grants encourage new investors to enter the risk finance market, where they syndicate investments with other investors. We argue that this results from the high cost of information acquisition for new investors. New investors bring additional capital into the market but provide little managerial support. However, as these investors join syndicates, ventures can raise larger financing amounts without compromising managerial support. Taken together, these factors positively affect the performance of entrepreneurial ventures. To test our hypotheses, we consider the case of Germany, where the federal government has introduced an investment grant for angel investors. Combining applicant data from the subsidy program with company and ownership information on the quasi-universe of German companies and a large-scale company-level panel survey covering over 900 angel-financed ventures to empirically assess our hypotheses provides strong support for our predictions. • Investigates angel investor subsidy program INVEST in Germany, focusing on the role of new investors • Links applicant records to ownership information on the quasi-universe of German companies and a company-level panel survey • Most new investors syndicate investments • Investor grant has positive growth effect and input additionality through better access to financial and managerial support