演讲人: 姜翰，香港中文大学，副教授

时间：2024年6月19日星期三9:30

地点：同济大厦A楼403教室

演讲摘要：

It is commonly believed that highlighting their elite educational and professional records in venture fundraising, as status signals, could help entrepreneurs better showcase their capabilities and credentials and convince investors, thus contributing to their fundraising success. In this study, however, we demonstrate that such status signaling effort could backfire for entrepreneurs who seek early-stage venture fundings through crowdfunding. We propose that, as a venue venture financing, crowdfunding is inherently imprinted with relatively low status: First, crowdfunders are generally of much lower financial and professional status than professional venture investors. Moreover, the potential financial support a project could raise through crowdfunding is commonly much lower than traditional venture financing venues. In such a manner, there would be potential dissonance between the (former) elite status of entrepreneurs and the mediocre status of the crowdfunding venue. Such status dissonance not only could psychologically distance crowdfunders from the entrepreneurs, but may also render the crowdfunders casting doubts about the potential and viability of the projects the entrepreneurs have to pitch through the lesser venue, thus discouraging them from backing the focal projects. In such a manner, for crowdfunding entrepreneurs, promoting their elite educational and professional background would create such status dissonance, thus hampering their fundraising performance. Evidence from crowdfunding projects posted on Kickstarter between 2018 and 2022 largely support the above theoretical prediction.

演讲嘉宾简介：

姜翰，香港中文大学副教授，曾在杜兰大学和亚利桑那大学担任教职。他致力于社会网络、组织间关系、公司治理与战略决策、国际商务和创业等方面的研究，过去十年间在UTD、FT列表期刊上发表十余篇学术论文。姜翰积极担任顶级学术期刊和学术会议的编辑和领导职责。自2021年底以来，他担任Asia Pacific Journal of Management的高级编辑。同时，他还是Strategic Management Journal和Management and Organization Review的编委会成员，以及中国管理研究国际学会宏观研究委员会委员。