IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/entthe/v36y2012i5p941-965.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Influence of Entrepreneurs’ Credentials and Impression Management Behaviors on Perceptions of New Venture Legitimacy

Author

Listed:
  • Brian G. Nagy
  • Jeffrey M. Pollack
  • Matthew W. Rutherford
  • Franz T. Lohrke

Abstract

We examine how entrepreneurs’ behaviors related to credentials and impression management (IM) impact perceptions of new venture (NV) legitimacy. Results from this experiment, as hypothesized, show that entrepreneurs’ credentials and IM behaviors are positively related to legitimacy perceptions. Contrary to expectations, however, findings do not support either interaction hypothesis when credentials are high or low. We discuss how these findings illustrate the importance of entrepreneurs’ behaviors during the NV creation process and outline multiple directions for future research.

Suggested Citation

  • Brian G. Nagy & Jeffrey M. Pollack & Matthew W. Rutherford & Franz T. Lohrke, 2012. "The Influence of Entrepreneurs’ Credentials and Impression Management Behaviors on Perceptions of New Venture Legitimacy," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 36(5), pages 941-965, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:entthe:v:36:y:2012:i:5:p:941-965
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6520.2012.00539.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1111/j.1540-6520.2012.00539.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1540-6520.2012.00539.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Tyzoon T. Tyebjee & Albert V. Bruno, 1984. "A Model of Venture Capitalist Investment Activity," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 30(9), pages 1051-1066, September.
    2. Jeffrey M. Pollack & Matthew W. Rutherford & Brian G. Nagy, 2012. "Preparedness and Cognitive Legitimacy as Antecedents of New Venture Funding in Televised Business Pitches," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 36(5), pages 915-939, September.
    3. Lloyd Steier & Royston Greenwood, 1995. "Venture Capitalist Relationships In The Deal Structuring And Post‐Investment Stages Of New Firm Creation," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(3), pages 337-357, May.
    4. Stewart Thornhill & Raphael Amit, 2003. "Learning About Failure: Bankruptcy, Firm Age, and the Resource-Based View," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 14(5), pages 497-509, October.
    5. Baum, Joel A. C. & Silverman, Brian S., 2004. "Picking winners or building them? Alliance, intellectual, and human capital as selection criteria in venture financing and performance of biotechnology startups," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 19(3), pages 411-436, May.
    6. Michael Lounsbury & Mary Ann Glynn, 2001. "Cultural entrepreneurship: stories, legitimacy, and the acquisition of resources," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(6‐7), pages 545-564, June.
    7. Delmar, Frederic & Shane, Scott, 2004. "Legitimating first: organizing activities and the survival of new ventures," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 19(3), pages 385-410, May.
    8. Baron, Robert A. & Markman, Gideon D., 2003. "Beyond social capital: the role of entrepreneurs' social competence in their financial success," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 41-60, January.
    9. Grandey, Alicia A. & Fisk, Glenda M. & Mattila, Anna S. & Jansen, Karen J. & Sideman, Lori A., 2005. "Is "service with a smile" enough? Authenticity of positive displays during service encounters," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 96(1), pages 38-55, January.
    10. Tornikoski, Erno T. & Newbert, Scott L., 2007. "Exploring the determinants of organizational emergence: A legitimacy perspective," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 311-335, March.
    11. Matthew W. Rutherford & Paul F. Buller & J. Michael Stebbins, 2009. "Ethical Considerations of the Legitimacy Lie," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 33(4), pages 949-964, July.
    12. Blake E. Ashforth & Barrie W. Gibbs, 1990. "The Double-Edge of Organizational Legitimation," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 1(2), pages 177-194, May.
    13. Siegel, Phyllis A. & Brockner, Joel, 2005. "Individual and organizational consequences of CEO claimed handicapping: What's good for the CEO may not be so good for the firm," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 96(1), pages 1-22, January.
    14. Jean Clarke, 2011. "Revitalizing Entrepreneurship : How Visual Symbols are Used in Entrepreneurial Performances," Post-Print hal-02312341, HAL.
    15. Jean Clarke, 2011. "Revitalizing Entrepreneurship: How Visual Symbols are Used in Entrepreneurial Performances," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48, pages 1365-1391, September.
    16. Scott Shane & Daniel Cable, 2002. "Network Ties, Reputation, and the Financing of New Ventures," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 48(3), pages 364-381, March.
    17. Shepherd, Dean A. & Douglas, Evan J. & Shanley, Mark, 2000. "New venture survival: Ignorance, external shocks, and risk reduction strategies," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 15(5-6), pages 393-410.
    18. Wayne, Sandy J. & Kacmar, K. Michele, 1991. "The effects of impression management on the performance appraisal process," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 70-88, February.
    19. Chemmanur, Thomas J. & Paeglis, Imants, 2005. "Management quality, certification, and initial public offerings," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(2), pages 331-368, May.
    20. Dirk De Clercq & Dimo Dimov, 2008. "Internal Knowledge Development and External Knowledge Access in Venture Capital Investment Performance," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(3), pages 585-612, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Fisher, Greg & Kuratko, Donald F. & Bloodgood, James M. & Hornsby, Jeffrey S., 2017. "Legitimate to whom? The challenge of audience diversity and new venture legitimacy," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 52-71.
    2. Wendy D. Chen, 2023. "Crowdfunding: different types of legitimacy," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 60(1), pages 245-263, January.
    3. van Werven, Ruben & Bouwmeester, Onno & Cornelissen, Joep P., 2015. "The power of arguments: How entrepreneurs convince stakeholders of the legitimate distinctiveness of their ventures," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 30(4), pages 616-631.
    4. Jeffrey M. Pollack & Matthew W. Rutherford & Brian G. Nagy, 2012. "Preparedness and Cognitive Legitimacy as Antecedents of New Venture Funding in Televised Business Pitches," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 36(5), pages 915-939, September.
    5. Karin Kreutzer, 2022. "On the Discursive Construction of Social Entrepreneurship in Pitch Situations: The Intertextual Reproduction of Business and Social Discourse by Presenters and Their Audience," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 179(4), pages 1071-1090, September.
    6. Benson, David F. & Brau, James C. & Cicon, James & Ferris, Stephen P., 2015. "Strategically camouflaged corporate governance in IPOs: Entrepreneurial masking and impression management," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 30(6), pages 839-864.
    7. Ko, Eun-Jeong & McKelvie, Alexander, 2018. "Signaling for more money: The roles of founders' human capital and investor prominence in resource acquisition across different stages of firm development," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 33(4), pages 438-454.
    8. Krukowski, Kipp A. & Pollack, Jeffrey M. & Rutherford, Matthew W., 2023. "Winning the opportunity to pitch: Piquing startup investors’ interest by sending the right signals in executive summaries," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 66(1), pages 75-86.
    9. Florian Überbacher, 2014. "Legitimation of New Ventures: A Review and Research Programme," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 51(4), pages 667-698, June.
    10. Lukas Maier & Christian V. Baccarella & Jörn H. Block & Timm F. Wagner & Kai-Ingo Voigt, 2023. "The Legitimization Effect of Crowdfunding Success: A Consumer Perspective," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 47(4), pages 1389-1420, July.
    11. Fischer, Eileen & Rebecca Reuber, A., 2014. "Online entrepreneurial communication: Mitigating uncertainty and increasing differentiation via Twitter," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 565-583.
    12. Collewaert, Veroniek & Vanacker, Tom & Anseel, Frederik & Bourgois, Dries, 2021. "The sandwich game: Founder-CEOs and forecasting as impression management," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 36(1).
    13. Patricia Jardim Da Palma & Miguel Pereira Lopes & Telmo Ferreira Alves, 2018. "Entrepreneurship as a Calling: A Pilot Study with Aspiring Entrepreneurs," Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Emerging Economies, Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India, vol. 27(2), pages 277-300, September.
    14. O'Neil, Isobel & Ucbasaran, Deniz, 2016. "Balancing “what matters to me” with “what matters to them”: Exploring the legitimation process of environmental entrepreneurs," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 133-152.
    15. Siegrun Brink, 2009. "Bedeutung der VC-Finanzierung für die Legitimierung junger Unternehmen - Ergebnisse einer empirischen Studie," Schumpeter Discussion Papers sdp09010, Universitätsbibliothek Wuppertal, University Library.
    16. Vasilis Theoharakis & Seraphim Voliotis & Jeffrey M. Pollack, 2021. "Going Down the Slippery Slope of Legitimacy Lies in Early-Stage Ventures: The Role of Moral Disengagement," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 172(4), pages 673-690, September.
    17. Allison, Thomas H. & Davis, Blakley C. & Webb, Justin W. & Short, Jeremy C., 2017. "Persuasion in crowdfunding: An elaboration likelihood model of crowdfunding performance," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 32(6), pages 707-725.
    18. Jean S. Clarke & Joep P. Cornelissen & Mark Healey, 2019. "Actions Speak Louder than Words : How Figurative Language and Gesturing in Entrepreneurial Pitches Influences Investment Judgments," Post-Print hal-02276704, HAL.
    19. Scheaf, David J. & Davis, Blakley C. & Webb, Justin W. & Coombs, Joseph E. & Borns, Jared & Holloway, Garrett, 2018. "Signals' flexibility and interaction with visual cues: Insights from crowdfunding," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 33(6), pages 720-741.
    20. Yuliya Snihur & Llewellyn D. W. Thomas & Raghu Garud & Nelson Phillips, 2022. "Entrepreneurial Framing: A Literature Review and Future Research Directions," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 46(3), pages 578-606, May.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:entthe:v:36:y:2012:i:5:p:941-965. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.