Abstract
This paper investigates the consequences of an understudied yet prevalent phenomenon in emerging technology fields: consensus/disagreement among experts on the proper criteria to use in evaluating firms’ technologies. While previous studies show that the emergence of evaluation criteria for a technology improves the life chances of well-performing firms in the new sector, we theorize that consensus in evaluation criteria increases investments to all firms and found supportive evidence from an experiment with 80 Chinese investors (Study 1). We further argue and found, in a second experiment with 412 U.S. participants (Study 2), that evaluation criteria consensus increases investments because it induces investors to view all firms in the new sector as technologically competent and to predict positive evaluations from others. Analyses of archival data on investment in U.S. (Study 3a) and Chinese firms (Study 3b) in artificial intelligence technology fields also lend support to our arguments. By exploring the social-cognitive processes that link technology evaluation criteria consensus to investments in emerging technology fields, this paper advances scholarly understanding of the micro-foundations of the institutionalization processes in new market sectors.
Published Version
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