CLFW researchers win Best Paper with Entrepreneurship Implications Award
5 August 2022
CLFW resarchers have been recognized by the preeminent professional association for management and organization scholars.
Prof. Lauren Howe and Prof. Jochen Menges were awarded the Academy of Management Organizational Behavior Division 2022 Best Paper with Entrepreneurship Implications Award, sponsored by the Kauffman Foundation. The Award recognizes the paper with the most significant implications for entrepreneurship scholarship in the field of organizational behavior.
The researchers set off to better understand what works for entrepreneurs to attract funding for their ventures. Existing literature suggests that entrepreneurs displaying their best qualities (such as relevant experience, passion, or preparedness) are more successful when they pitch their ideas. What, then, to make of the insecure, disorganized, and nerdy entrepreneurs that often succeed in securing considerable amounts of funds?
The winning paper, entitled “Investors Increase Financial Support to Entrepreneurs who Share a Personal Shortcoming,” examines whether and when entrepreneurs exposing negative personal characteristics may have a positive effect on investors. Based on the results of two rigorous experiments and one archival study, the authors conclude that appearing flawed can be a strength rather than a weakness when soliciting investments. The paper further defines categories of flaws (bridging and distancing) and specifies the conditions under which disclosing certain flaws serve to increase investor identification with an entrepreneur seeking funding.
The research thus challenges lay wisdom which assumes that an entrepreneur who minimizes weaknesses will be most influential. In fact, flaws that involve an excess of a socially desirable quality can in the best case fail to sway potential investors, and in the worst case even repel them.
The award committee, composed of Jeff Gish (Chair), Anijer Chen, Manuel Vaulont, Ludvig Levasseur, Jordan Nielsen, and Malcolm Patterson, commented: “The awards committee applauds the novel combination of archival and experimental analyses to complement one another in this paper; a very exciting and thorough empirical approach. The authors expose and explain subtle individual- and dyadic-level heuristics that exist in funding contests, which is something that both organizational behavior and entrepreneurship audiences would find theoretically interesting and practically relevant.”
Founded in 1936, the Academy of Management assembles a global community of 18,000 members in over 120 countries, including professors and Ph.D students in business schools, academics in related social science, and practitioners who value knowledge creation and application.