Influence of Entrepreneurial Orientation on Venture Capitalists' Initial Trust

Abstract

The effectiveness of trust has been extensively investigated in entrepreneurship studies. However, compared to the outcomes of trust, we still lack knowledge about the mechanisms underlying venture capitalists' initial trust in entrepreneurs. Drawing from signal theory and impression management theory, this study explores an impression management motivational explanation for the influencing factors of venture capitalists' initial trust. An empirical test is based on 202 valid questionnaires from venture capitalists, and the results indicate that the signal of five dimensions of entrepreneurial orientation has a significant impact on the initial trust of venture capitalists and that a signal of entrepreneurial orientation of perseverance or passion positively influences venture capitalists' initial trust through acquired impression management strategies, while a signal of entrepreneurial orientation of risk-taking, innovation, or proactivity positively affects the initial trust of venture capitalists through defensive impression management strategies. The perceptions of entrepreneurs' hypocrisy by venture capitalists negatively moderate the relationship between acquired impression management strategies and the initial trust of venture capitalists and negatively moderate the relationship between defensive impression management strategies and the initial trust of venture capitalists.

The Beauty Premium: Physicians’ Appearance and Patients’ Selection and Evaluation Behavior in Online Health Communities

“…When giving feedback on the quality of the physician's service, patients will take the physician's appearance as a reference for service quality. Thus, it can positively impact on patients' selection and evaluation behavior This is consistent with previous research that employers considered employee attractiveness when making recruitment and salary decisions and believed that attractive individuals could provide high-quality work [42,43].…”

Physician's online image and patient's choice in the online health community

“…For patients, this is an important channel to alleviate information asymmetry about the physicians' attributes. Patients can use beauty, smile and skin status as signals to form their impressions of physicians and form their judgments since these three indicators are all associated with physicians' abilities and trustworthiness (Gu and Ji, 2019;Wilson and Eckel, 2006;Ert and Fleischer, 2019;Yang et al, 2021b).Thus, signaling theory offers a fundamental framework for us to understand the impacts of the indicators extracted from physicians' online images on patients' choices.…”

“…Skin blemishes (Jaeger et al, 2018) and skin smoothness (Tsankova and Kappas, 2016) had a significant impact on people's impressions. Also, some researchers argued that such a type of impression had a significant effect on people's initial trust (Yang et al, 2021b).…”

Entrepreneurial Passion and Venture Capitalists’ Willingness to Invest: The Role of Relational Capital

“…The investment decision of venture capitalists is rational behavior ( Yang et al, 2021 ); hence, scholars tend to choose mediating variables, such as perceived risk or perceived return, on the basis of transaction cost theory or agency theory to explain the mechanisms underlying entrepreneurial characteristics or behaviors that influence venture capitalists’ investment decision behavior or willingness ( Arthurs and Busenitz, 2003 ). However, even though venture capitalists try to examine venture investments rationally, venture capitalists are still influenced by their cognitive biases ( Linder and Sperber, 2020 ; Sanchez-Ruiz et al, 2021 ), especially when entrepreneurs release the interpersonal signal of entrepreneurial passion ( Ciuchta et al, 2018 ).…”