No politics in funding pitches: An expectancy violations theory perspective of entrepreneurs' political expressions in crowdfunding

Jeffrey A. Chandler, Aaron H. Anglin, Fizza Kanwal and Jeremy C. Short

Journal of Business Venturing, 2024, vol. 39, issue 1

Abstract: Drawing from expectancy violation theory, we investigate how entrepreneurs' language-based expressions of their political ideology influence the performance of their crowdfunding campaigns. We argue that crowdfunding funders expect campaigns to be apolitical, suggesting that entrepreneurs' expressing their political ideologies – regardless of the specific ideology – create a negative expectancy violation that decreases funding performance. As source credibility is a central boundary condition for expectancy violation theory predictions, we also suggest this relationship is mitigated by three indicators of entrepreneurial credibility: prior successful experience, media usage, and third-party endorsements. Using a sample of 19,898 Kickstarter campaigns and a randomized experiment, we find support for our theoretical predictions.

Keywords: Expressions of political ideology; Crowdfunding performance; Expectancy violation theory; Experience; Media; Third-party endorsements; Content analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jbvent:v:39:y:2024:i:1:s0883902623000794

DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusvent.2023.106365

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