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Full-Text Articles in Business

Gender Inclusion Activities In Entrepreneurship Ecosystems: The Case Of St. Louis, Mo And Boston, Ma, Banu Ozkazanc-Pan, Karren Knowlton, Susan Clark Muntean Jun 2017

Gender Inclusion Activities In Entrepreneurship Ecosystems: The Case Of St. Louis, Mo And Boston, Ma, Banu Ozkazanc-Pan, Karren Knowlton, Susan Clark Muntean

Management and Marketing Faculty Publication Series

Women-owned businesses have an economic impact of nearly $3 trillion in the U.S. Despite the tremendous opportunity for economic growth they present, women entrepreneurs lag behind their male counterparts in terms of number of start-ups and scaling of businesses. To understand how and why this may be taking shape, we focus on the role of entrepreneur support organizations (ESOs) or those organizations that act as intermediaries between the resources of a local ecosystem and entrepreneurs. All organizations that have as their proverbial mission to serve, support or partner with entrepreneurs can be categorized as ESOs. Given their role as decision …


Convincing The Crowd: Entrepreneurial Storytelling In Crowdfunding Campaigns, Stephan Manning, Thomas A. Bejarano Jan 2017

Convincing The Crowd: Entrepreneurial Storytelling In Crowdfunding Campaigns, Stephan Manning, Thomas A. Bejarano

Management and Marketing Faculty Publication Series

This study examines the structure of entrepreneurial stories in pursuit of mobilizing resources from crowds. Based on a comparative analysis of Kickstarter crowdfunding campaigns, we examine in particular how, across different project types, project histories and potential futures are framed and interlinked in narratives to appeal to funders. We find that projects are narrated in different styles – as ‘ongoing journeys’ or ‘results-in-progress’ – to convey project value. The former style narrates projects as longer-term endeavors powered by creative initial ideas and a bold vision, inviting audiences to ‘join the journey’; the latter narrates projects more narrowly as a progression …