Michael P. Ciuchta

Betting on the Coachable Entrepreneur: Signaling and Social Exchange in Entrepreneurial Pitches

Given that stakeholders often commit more than capital to a startup, they commonly stress how important it is for entrepreneurs to be “coachable.” To date, however, coachability has received little attention in entrepreneurship research. We address this gap by first establishing the entrepreneurial coachability construct and validating a measurement scale. Then, drawing on social exchange and signaling theories, we develop and test a novel framework in which coachability influences a potential investor’s willingness to invest. We find that entrepreneurial coachability functions as a viable signal in a pitch setting, but this impact is conditional on the investor’s prior coaching experience.

Founding logics, technology validation, and the path to commercialization:

Considerable research has demonstrated that small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) who obtain institutionalized third-party endorsements experience higher performance. In this study, we develop an important boundary condition around this process. Drawing on institutional logics, we introduce the novel concept of founding logics. We then develop and test a theory in which founding logics play a role in both an SME’s decision to seek a third-party endorsement for the firm’s technology and then the likelihood that the SME will generate revenues based on the technology receiving the endorsement. Notably, our theory and results suggest that a founding logic that may compel an SME to seek technology validation can also impede the SME’s ultimate commercialization ability.

Buy Local? Organizational Identity in the Localism Movement

Localism is a social movement often associated with “buy local” food initiatives or the prevention of big-box retail expansion. At its core, however, localism is also about fostering local independence by encouraging businesses to opt for local alternatives when making purchasing decisions. In this article, we develop and test hypotheses that organizations with stronger community-oriented identities are more likely to source locally and that this relationship is moderated by the importance of the focal firm’s purchasing decisions. Results support the strong influence of identity but the conditional effect is unconfirmed.

Looks and linguistics: Impression formation in online exchange marketplaces

ABSTRACT This study advances theories of impression formation by focusing on two factors that generate emotional responses: physical attractiveness and positive word use. Although considerable research on impression formation exists, most studies consider factors in isolation and neglect possible interactions. Our theory introduces competing mechanisms regarding possible interaction effects, and we empirically test them in an online marketplace. Results from the analysis of 729 loan requests from a leading online peer-to-peer lending market suggest that physical attractiveness and positive word use work together to influence the likelihood of acquiring resources and establish an important boundary condition to the general “beauty is good” effect.

Absorbing Crowdsourcing Capacity: An Exploratory Study

By tapping external knowledge sources, crowdsourcing has emerged as a viable means for organizations to overcome internal capacity, skill and knowledge constraints. Previous research has identified...

The Impact of Organizational Identity on Learning from Initial Experiences

In this dissertation I develop new theory which suggests that a complete understanding of how or if an organization learns from its experiences must take into account its identity. Specifically, identity serves as the lens through which organizations notice, interpret and respond to experiences. Adopting this perspective, I develop and test theory that suggests that different identities at founding can account for why organizations learn differently from similar experiences and how this learning affects time to commercialization of their product or service. I investigate my research questions using data from a sample of start-up organizations located around a large research university.