The narcissism of crowdfunding entrepreneurs

Social networks and personality traits of the entrepreneur affect investors’willingness to finance start-ups, particularly in reward-based crowdfunding where observable individual characteristics are paramount. We study the impact of crowdfunding entrepreneurs’ narcissism on campaign design and camp...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Small business economics 2020-06, Vol.55 (1), p.57-76
Main Authors: Bollaert, Helen, Leboeuf, Gaël, Schwienbacher, Armin
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Ambition
Behavior
Business and Management
Campaigns
Crowdfunding
Ego
Entrepreneurial finance
Entrepreneurs
Entrepreneurship
Finance
Industrial Organization
Management
Microeconomics
Narcissism
Personality traits
Social networks
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Social networks and personality traits of the entrepreneur affect investors’willingness to finance start-ups, particularly in reward-based crowdfunding where observable individual characteristics are paramount. We study the impact of crowdfunding entrepreneurs’ narcissism on campaign design and campaign outcome. We distinguish between the ego-defensive behavior and grandiose/arrogant behavior of narcissists in the hypotheses for campaign design. We find that more narcissistic crowdfunding entrepreneurs set less ambitious goals and longer campaign durations, consistent with ego-defensive behavior. We further document that more narcissistic entrepreneurs are less successful than other entrepreneurs, suggesting that crowdfunders recognize the narcissistic tendencies of entrepreneurs and are more reluctant to support them. Our results are consistent with recent conceptual research, suggesting that there are specific effects of narcissism in the earlystage entrepreneurial context.
ISSN:0921-898X
1573-0913
DOI:10.1007/s11187-019-00145-w