Entrepreneurial Resource Acquisition Research Articles

When Failure Is Not Fatal: Examining Venture Resource Acquisition Following Product Development Failure

Product development in innovation-driven industries often fails. Although such failures cause new ventures to struggle to raise follow-on investments, some overcome this challenge. Why? Synthesizing insights from the research on signaling and social evaluation theory, we identify how certain resources can mitigate the risk of funding termination for new ventures despite product development failure. Through a longitudinal study of 254 venture capital-funded biotechnology ventures, we show that internal quality signals decrease in their effectiveness while industry endorsement signals increase in their effectiveness as quality signals over time. Our findings contribute to the literatures on entrepreneurial failure, entrepreneurial resource acquisition and signaling.

The Influence Mechanism of Online Social Network Relationships on Sustainable Entrepreneurial Success

Affected by economic uncertainty, the success rate of sustainable entrepreneurship is not optimistic at present. Effectively improving the success rate of sustainable entrepreneurship is of great significance for ensuring and maintaining sustainable development for long-term socioeconomic and environmental sustainability. Based on social network theory, entrepreneurial capital theory, psychological capital theory, and the literature on sustainable entrepreneurship, this study explores the influence mechanism of online social network relationships on sustainable entrepreneurial success from the perspective of those relationships, dividing entrepreneurs’ abilities into an online relationship-building ability and online relationship coordination ability. We used an empirical study with 346 valid questionnaires. The results of a PLS-SEM analysis show that online social network relationships have a significant impact on sustainable entrepreneurial capital, in which online relationship-building capacity has a similar impact on both sustainable entrepreneurial resource integration and acquisition; online relationship-building capacity can positively affect both transactional and interpersonal psychological capital; sustainable entrepreneurial resource integration can be more effective than resource acquisition in promoting sustainable entrepreneurial success through the use of social media; and transactional psychological capital has a more significant impact on sustainable entrepreneurial success than does interpersonal psychological capital. This study provides new insights into how entrepreneurs can fully utilize their online social network relationships to achieve entrepreneurial success.

Roles of Entrepreneurial Resource Acquisition and Family Support in Internet Use and Women’s Entrepreneurial Competence

Women have become an increasingly important force in entrepreneurship, and their relatively low entrepreneurial competence has aroused widespread attention from the academia. Drawing from the resource-based theory and the social support theory, this study aims to explore the impact of Internet use on women’s entrepreneurial competence and the roles of entrepreneurial resource acquisition and family support in this relationship. After collecting a sample of 328 women entrepreneurs in China, this study demonstrates that Internet use is positively related to women’s entrepreneurial competence, and this relation is partially mediated by entrepreneurial resource acquisition. Moreover, family support moderates the relation between Internet use and entrepreneurial resource acquisition as well as the mediating effect of entrepreneurial resource acquisition. The results of the current study contribute to revealing how Internet use affects women’s entrepreneurial competence, including its direct and indirect effects and boundary conditions. Practical implications for policy-makers and female entrepreneurs are also provided.

Visual totality of rewards-based crowdfunding pitch videos: Disentangling the impact of peak negative affective visual expression on funding outcomes

In this study, we introduce visual totality of a crowdfunding pitch video which considers not only visual segments with human faces but also segments without human faces. Drawing from Emotions as Social Information (EASI) theory and expression theory, we analyze more than 4 million frames in 3184 Indiegogo rewards-based crowdfunding pitch videos using the ResNet 50 deep neural network. Results indicate that the impact of peak negative affective visual expression on funding performance is stronger than that of its positive counterpart for both segments with and without human faces. Additionally, the influence of peak negative affective visual expression from human faces is stronger in the first half (vs. the second half) of the pitch video. Further, we found a substitute moderating effect between the peak negative affective visual expression from segments with and without human faces on funding performance. We conducted an additional data collection to ascertain that pain points serve as the underlying mechanism through which negative affective visual expressions related to funding outcome. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our study to the crowdfunding literature and the broader research on entrepreneurial resource acquisition.

Pitching with your heart (on your sleeve): Getting to the heart of how display authenticity matters in crowdfunding

ABSTRACT It is known that people can distinguish authentic from inauthentic emotional displays. It is also known that emotions are generally impactful in crowdfunding pitches. Yet, the potential lynchpin-like role that displays of authentic emotion may play in funding pitches has been overlooked in entrepreneurial resource acquisition research. More importantly, research on authenticity has not uncovered the mechanisms through which display authenticity positively affects observers’ responses. Our work fills this gap by developing a theoretical model that explains the underlying processes of entrepreneurs’ display authenticity and success in crowdfunding. Consistent with the predictions of the emotions as social information model, results from a field study and an experiment reveal the mediating roles of inferential and affective processes. Furthermore, our findings provide evidence for the moderating role of funders’ epistemic motivation on performance. We find that, depending on path, these effects take different directions.

Framing ideas for new venture resources acquisition in crises: An fsQCA analysis

How should new venture ideas be framed in order to acquire human resources and gain support in times of crisis characterized by struggling or failing institutions and governmental organizations? To answer this question, we analyze 316 new venture ideas aimed at alleviating the COVID-19 crisis in 11 countries. We investigate different linguistic framing configurations and test their persuasive power for human resource acquisition. Our fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) and linguistic analysis reveal that a “common enemy framing” is crucial for obtaining resources in crisis contexts. Non-profit venture ideas, specifically, may acquire resources via two additional paths: adding positive emotional content or using an entrepreneurial hustle framing with concrete calls to action. Our findings provide novel insights into entrepreneurial resource acquisition and idea framing during crises.

Research on the Relationship between Entrepreneurial Self-Efficacy and Entrepreneurial Intention

Entrepreneurship is a key concept to understand the rapid development of China’s economy since the reform and opening-up. It is related to the revitalization of the Chinese nation. Formulating effective entrepreneurial policies and measures, carrying out entrepreneurship education, and promoting entrepreneurial actions are important issues that government agencies, educational institutions, and the society at all levels are paying attention to. The key lies in the insight into the psychological cognitive mechanism and motivation source of entrepreneurs in starting a business. Upon reviewing previous studies, this article believes that entrepreneurial self-efficacy and entrepreneurial intentions are the key concepts and entry points connecting entrepreneurial characteristics, entrepreneurial behavior, and cognitive research. This study explores the relationship between entrepreneurial self-efficacy and entrepreneurial intention from five dimensions: entrepreneurial planning efficacy, entrepreneurial resource acquisition, relationship coordination efficacy, risk-taking efficacy, as well as innovation and reform efficacy. Suggestions and strategies have been proposed in this article to integrate the entrepreneurial ecology of universities, society and the government, reform the entrepreneurial education model, as well as improve the entrepreneurial willingness of college students.

Perceived warmth and competence in crowdfunding: Which matters more and for whom?

Despite the importance of warmth and competence for social evaluation processes, we do not have a clear understanding of their relevance in entrepreneurial resource acquisition contexts. We examine the effects of cursory impressions of 350 Kickstarter crowdfunding entrepreneurs’ warmth and competence on the performance of their campaigns. Drawing from the stereotype content model and expectancy violation theory, we propose and find support for a model in which different forms of trust mediate the relationships between warmth and competence and crowdfunding performance, with the strength of these pathways differing as a function of entrepreneur gender. Specifically, we show that the crowdfunding performance of women entrepreneurs is uniquely benefited by perceptions of competence and the cognition-based trust that ensues, relative to the performance of men entrepreneurs.

Family Matters: Dual Network Embeddedness, Resource Acquisition, and Entrepreneurial Success of Small Tourism Firms in Rural China

Small tourism firms (STFs) established and operated by local families can be an engine of sustainable rural tourism. This paper stresses the intimate intertwining of family and business in rural STFs and conceptualizes their entrepreneurial success as a combination of business performance and family well-being. Integrating the resource-based view and network embeddedness theory, relationships among the STF owners’ dual social networks (family and industry networks), entrepreneurial resource acquisition, and entrepreneurial success are proposed and tested with a sample of 276 STFs in rural China. The empirical analyses reveal that (1) compared with tangible and knowledge-based resources, the owners’ acquisition of psychic resources has the strongest effect on entrepreneurial success; and (2) although industry networks provide more diverse access to entrepreneurial resources, family networks are superior in facilitating psychic resource acquisition, thus are especially important to the entrepreneurial success of rural STFs. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

The Effect of Perceived Warmth and Competence on Crowdfunding Success: The Moderating Role of Gender

Perceptions of warmth and competence account for a large proportion of the variance in impression formation. However, these constructs and their underlying mechanisms have received little attention in the entrepreneurship literature, particularly in the context of entrepreneurial resource acquisition. We examine the impact of perceptions of warmth and competence on the outcomes of 350 crowdfunding campaigns sampled from a popular crowdfunding platform, Kickstarter, wherein only cursory determinations of entrepreneurs and their new ventures occur prior to funding decisions. Drawing from the stereotype content model and expectancy violation theory, we propose and find support for a model in which each of affect- and cognition-based trust mediate the relationships between crowdfunding performance and perceived warmth and competence, respectively, with the strength of these pathways differing as a function of entrepreneur gender. Specifically, women are benefited more than men by their displays of competence, and the cognition-based trust that ensues.

The influence of cronyism on entrepreneurial resource acquisition

This research focuses on how entrepreneurs utilize cronyism to acquire resources. A case study method allowed us to explore three firms in the private property development industry in China. These firms uniquely cultivated cronyism and achieved distinctly different outcomes. Our findings highlight Chinese entrepreneurs in start-up ventures and later-stage enterprises employ cronyism. The underlying rationale for using cronyism have common and heterogeneous motivations. The similarity and distinguishing rationale also apply to the impact of cronyism. We also find two contingency working mechanisms for cronyism: entrepreneurial characteristics and a staged model for cronyism. With the firm’s growth, cronyism remains important, but firms with more community involvement outperform others. This research contributes to the theory on strategic network utilization for resource acquisition during entrepreneurial development stages. We investigate how entrepreneurial strategies can assist in adapting to the “rules of the game” while utilizing resources within the set contextual constraints.

Here Comes the Sun: The Impact of Incidental Contextual Factors on Entrepreneurial Resource Acquisition

This paper focuses on investment decisions in nascent, seed-stage startups, where information is scarce and uncertainty is intense. The entrepreneurship literature shows investment is a function of...

The Effect of Entrepreneurial Orientation,Social Network,and Resource Acquisition on Firm Performance in Chinese SMEs: The Mediating Effect of Resource Acquisition

The Effect of Entrepreneurial Orientation,Social Network,and Resource Acquisition on Firm Performance in Chinese SMEs: The Mediating Effect of Resource Acquisition

A Study on the Influence of Entrepreneurial Resources Acquisition on MBA Students' Entrepreneurial Willingness—Based on the Moderating Effect of Entrepreneurs' Personalities

MBA students have both systematic theoretical knowledge and rich social experience. They are the new force of innovation and entrepreneurship. They form the core competitiveness of entrepreneurship by acquiring entrepreneurial resources. Based on the individual characteristics of entrepreneurs, this study constructs a research model to explore the mechanism between entrepreneurial resource acquisition and entrepreneurial willingness. It is found that the acquisition of entrepreneurial resources has a significant positive impact on entrepreneurial willingness, while the cooperation ability of entrepreneurs' personal characteristics plays a significant regulatory role. Therefore, this study proposes that colleges and universities should integrate entrepreneurial resources, strengthen personal characteristics training, and comprehensively improve the innovation and entrepreneurship ability and willingness of MBA students in innovation and entrepreneurship education.

Category Labels and Entrepreneurial Resource Acquisition: A Study of Crowdfunding Campaigns

Resource acquisition is a crucial step in entrepreneurship. Audiences have a hard time evaluating early stage entrepreneurial projects because of their inherent ambiguity leading entrepreneurs to often resort to rhetorical strategies to help audiences make sense of them. From categorization literature, we identify category labels as a relevant technique entrepreneurs can use to help audiences make sense and reduce the ambiguity of their initiatives. Recombination of categories is a double-edged sword for entrepreneurial projects because it highlights a tension between generating confusion and arising curiosity. We hypothesize that the use of category labels is associated with more resource acquisition, and that the degree of category spanning is associated with more resource acquisition. We finally hypothesize an inverted U-shaped relationship between the creativity of category label recombination and the level of resource acquisition. We find support for our hypotheses using the descriptions of 26,967 crowdfunding projects presented on Indiegogo and Kickstarter from 2010 to 2017.

When Do Entrepreneurs Network? The Effects of Failure Threat and Self-Efficacy on Social Networks

The extant research illustrated that social networks are crucial for entrepreneurial resource acquisition and success. However, few studies have investigated what situations lead entrepreneurs to engage in networking behavior and develop social networks. Building on resource allocation theory, we propose that networking behavior consumes cognitive attention and time resource, and entrepreneurs are more likely to engage in networking behavior when they face salient failure threat and hold low confidence in addressing such threat. With an experiment with 155 entrepreneurs in China, we found that failure threat increases entrepreneurs’ networking behavior, and this effect is attenuated by self-affirmation. A longitudinal survey of 153 entrepreneurs in China showed that contingency of entrepreneurs’ self-worth on business success, which amplifies the impact of failure threat, is associated with social networks rich in structural holes and low in density in the short term, whereas these effects are attenuated by entrepreneurial self-efficacy. In the long term, low self-efficacy and contingency of self-worth leads entrepreneurs to develop dense network. Overall, entrepreneurs’ networking behavior is aligned with their dynamic needs, and the need to acquire information and resources is prioritized over the need to seek social support. The findings contribute to social capital theory, strategic view of entrepreneurial behavior, and psychological research on network activation.

Engaging alumni entrepreneurs in the student entrepreneurship development process: A social network perspective

Using the social network perspective and a case study of Chongqing Jiaotong University, this study analyzes the engagement of alumni entrepreneurs in the university student entrepreneurship development process in China. It employs primary data gathered through interviews of senior university managers, alumni and student entrepreneurs, and student start-ups. The study found that the importance of alumni entrepreneurs is comparatively weak at the formation stage of student entrepreneurial intention but relatively strong at the entrepreneurial resource acquisition stage. The most important resource provided by the alumni is information, followed by materials, clients, and human, technological and financial resources. Professors play the most important role in nurturing student entrepreneurship, both at the formation stage and the resource acquisition stage. The findings suggest that universities should involve alumni entrepreneurs actively to foster student entrepreneurship as well as incentivize professors to proactively nurture student entrepreneurs.

Entrepreneurial orientation and new venture resource acquisition: why context matters

Resource acquisition is vital for new venture survival and growth. However, surprisingly little is known about how the entrepreneurial orientation (EO) of the new venture affects its resource acquisition. Drawing on the resource-based view of the firm, we articulate a theory and treatment of EO that address this oversight and remedy for the routine absence of context among studies of EO. Accounting for the simultaneous effect of environmental dynamism and an opportunistic orientation (OO), a tendency among Chinese new ventures to imitate technology and profit through market information asymmetry, as important contextual variables reflecting the Chinese business context, we provide insights on the contingency effects of contextual variables. Results from a quantitative study of 361 Chinese new ventures show that EO positively influences resource acquisition. However, this relationship is context sensitive. In a low dynamic environment, OO negatively moderates this relationship. However, in a highly dynamic environment, OO exhibits no effect on the relationship between EO and new venture resource acquisition. Our results contribute to a resource-based theory of EO and reveal its context sensitivity. Our study is a step in moving the scholarship of EO forward and away from the performance debate towards greater predictive accuracy of EO and its systems of effects.

When the Going Gets Tough: New Venture Legitimacy Buffering to Mitigate Product Development Failure

The introduction of its first product, serves as a critical milestone for a new venture, generating legitimacy and providing a route to earning revenue and market share that can enable the venture to evolve and grow. However, major product development failures can constitute a legitimacy crisis for new ventures. Although prior research has suggested that legitimacy can be acquired and maintained through different types of actions such as founder human capital, investor reputation, patenting and various kinds of inter-organizational relationships, research is yet to systematically investigate how the value and information conveyed by these different mechanisms could vary over the course of evolution of the venture. Hence our research question is, “How might new ventures maintain legitimacy in the face of product development failures and how might this vary over the course of the venture’s evolution?” We test and evaluate the effectiveness of different types of legitimacy buffers on a sample of 256 VC funded new ventures founded in the biotechnology industry over the period 1990 to 2012. By examining the course of development of the venture’s first product, we posit that the efficacy of legitimacy buffers used by ventures will vary based on the stage of development at which product failure occurs. We then theorize when and how different types of buffers protect a new venture from adverse legitimacy judgments imposed by financial resource providers in the face of significant failures. Our study makes important contributions to the literature on new venture legitimacy and entrepreneurial resource acquisition by providing a temporal perspective on the changing criteria for legitimacy judgements over the course of a new venture’s evolution.

Does Reputation Take the Train? Augmented and Intermediated Reputation-by-Affiliation

Extensive work documents how reputation-by-affiliation with a venture capital firm facilitates entrepreneurial resource acquisition. However, past work often obfuscates two common but distinct mech...