Emotional assuring, trust Building, and resource mobilization in start-up organizations

Quy Huy and Christoph Zott ()
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Quy Huy: INSEAD
Christoph Zott: IESE Business School, Postal: Research Division, Av Pearson 21, 08034 Barcelona, SPAIN

No D/828, IESE Research Papers from IESE Business School

Abstract: Based on a five-year field study of six new ventures, we investigate whether and how organization foun-ders use affective influence, a form of emotion management, with diverse stakeholders, namely investors, board members, customers, and employees. We found wide differences in founders' propensity to use affective influence actions and that not all affective influence actions were effective in mobilizing re-sources for the new firm. We identified a particular form of beneficial affective influence we call "emo-tional assuring," which refers to affective influence actions that seek to build three different dimensions of trust in regard to the new firm: (1) the firm's integrity, (2) the founder's competence as an entrepreneur, and (3) the founder's benevolent character. Although firms that practiced little emotional assuring could mobilize adequate resources as well as firms that did it in munificent environments, the latter gained an upper hand and were more resilient under tough economic conditions. We also identified the moderating conditions and limitations of emotional assuring.

Keywords: Affective influence; emotional assuring; emotion; entrepreneurship; organization creation; resource mobilization; trust (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 41 pages
Date: 2009-10-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ent and nep-soc
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ebg:iesewp:d-0828

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