Searching for Success—Entrepreneurs’ Responses to Crowdfunding Failure

Abstract

In this study, we seek to provide new insights into the process of problemistic search by examining entrepreneurs’ behavioral responses to failures. Using a comprehensive dataset of over 65,000 crowdfunding projects, we specifically explore how negative performance feedback influences entrepreneurs’ search distance. Our results demonstrate that the severity and persistence of failure have a U-shaped and inverted U-shaped relationship with search distance, respectively. Moreover, greater temporal distance between an entrepreneur’s failure experience and a subsequent crowdfunding project is not only associated with increases in search distance, but also attenuates the curvilinear main effects.

Responding to Inconsistent Performance Feedback on Multiple Goals: The Contingency Role of Decision Maker's Status in Introducing Changes

“…Although such examinations are still rare and are currently at the forefront of related research (Audia and Greve, 2021), there is the possibility of the characteristics of each individual performance feedback influencing these relationships. Building on some recent research on the characteristics of a single performance signal (Yu et al 2019, Piening et al 2021) and causally related performance signals (Mazzelli et al 2019), future studies could therefore investigate whether different aspects of performance feedback give rise to different types of inconsistency that, in turn, have differential effects to responsive changes by providing more (or less) room to decision makers to self-enhance or adopt a problem-solving orientation. Furthermore, scholars could explore the performance implications of these changes and thus develop moderated mediation models of how feedback inconsistency might impact performance via triggering the initiation of changes.…”

Does performance persistence below aspirations affect firms' accounting information disclosure strategies? An empirical study based on reliability and comparability

“…At the same time, decision‐makers tend to view a brief period of poor performance (e.g., the presence of PBA) as a random encounter in the course of a business rather than an important signal of a problem (Blagoeva et al, 2020; Posen et al, 2018). Therefore, as pointed out by Piening et al (2021), executives pay more attention to PPBA than PBA and are more likely to take action to deal with PPBA (Xue et al, 2022). Admittedly, PPBA has been found to influence corporate innovation activities (Yang et al, 2021; Zhong, Song, & Chen, 2022), but what role it plays in corporate accounting disclosure activities has not been systematically explored.…”

Confidence and change in entrepreneurial plan upon reentry: examining the effects in crowdfunding failure

“…Second, it contributes to the broader literature looking at responses to negative performance feedback (Baum and Dahlin, 2007;Kotiloglu et al, 2021;Piening et al, 2021;Schumacher et al, 2020), although in the CF context. Performance feedback literature suggests that negative performance feedback increases the intensity of action and change implemented by the decision-maker to restore performance above a target threshold (Kotiloglu et al, 2021;Labianca et al, 2009).…”

“…This study examines the effect of the entrepreneur's own confidence level, as signaled by their pitch to the Internet public, on the course of action and plan they enact on a subsequent CF attempt after a failed one. Additionally, this study contributes to the limited but growing literature examining CF failures (Fan-Osuala, 2021;Piening et al, 2021). Extant studies have mainly focused on the entrepreneur's response to CF failure, but not on the plans they enact on subsequent relaunch.…”