Three Studies on Cultural Entrepreneurship and Crowdfunding: We’Ve Got Your Back, the Legitimacy Threshold Revisited, and Four Pathways Towards Cultural Resonance
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Three Studies on Cultural Entrepreneurship and Crowdfunding: We’ve Got Your Back, The Legitimacy Threshold Revisited, and Four Pathways Towards Cultural Resonance by Jean-François Soublière A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Strategic Management and Organization Faculty of Business University of Alberta © Jean-François Soublière, 2019 ABSTRACT The primary goal of this doctoral thesis is to advance knowledge on the processes by which entrepreneurial actors gain and maintain the support of their audiences, such as resource providers. Theoretically, my research contributes to the growing body of work on the cultural dynamics of entrepreneurship and strategic innovation. Empirically, my work focuses on the dynamic interplay between actors and their audience of backers on the Kickstarter crowdfunding platform. The three studies presented in this thesis all tackle this same theme in unique ways. In the first study, I ask, how do actors maintain the support of their audiences when they encounter important setbacks, and what role do their audiences play in shaping the support that actors receive? Using an in-depth, qualitative case study methodology, I retrace the journey of the very first major crowdfunding success story. Whereas prior studies suggest that audiences merely assess actors’ attempts to (re)gain their support, I suggest that audiences actively participate, too, offering accounts of what transpired to shape how others respond to setbacks. This study contributes by offering a fuller conceptualization of audiences in entrepreneurial processes, by illuminating the role of emotions in shaping the support that endeavors receive, and by providing rich and detailed insights into the emergence of crowdfunding platforms. In the second study, I ask, how does the legitimacy conferred on entrepreneurial endeavors affect the legitimacy of subsequent ones? I extend the notion of a “legitimacy threshold” to develop and test a recursive model of legitimacy. I test my hypotheses by examining 182,358 endeavors pitched within 165 categories over a six-year period on Kickstarter, one of the most important crowdfunding platforms. I show that individual outcomes, taken collectively, generate legitimacy spillovers, either by encouraging audiences to repeatedly support other related endeavors or by ii discouraging them from doing so. This research contributes to understanding the recursive nature of legitimacy, the competitive dynamics of entrepreneurial efforts, and crowdfunding platforms. In the third and last study, I ask, how do entrepreneurial actors imbue their endeavors with meaning when achieving cultural resonance is problematic, i.e., when actors and their audiences share poorly overlapping cultural repertoires? Recognizing that the meaning-making of actors and that of their audiences may not always align, I theorize four pathways by which cultural resonance may be achieved: anchoring, steering, retooling, and seeding efforts. Extending optimal distinctiveness research, I argue that each pathway entails a distinct strategic tension that actors must skillfully manage. I then develop propositions explaining how and when actors may do so. I conclude this thesis by discussing the overall significance of these three studies, as well as directions for future research. Theoretically and empirically, my thesis challenges the dominant wisdom that entrepreneurship and strategic innovation are technology-driven activities, and casts such efforts as fundamentally cultural undertakings. iii PREFACE The study presented in Chapter 2 received research ethics approval from the University of Alberta Research Ethics Board, Project Name “Understanding crowdfunding dynamics between entrepreneurs / creators and their virtual communities”, October 3, 2015. Chapter 3 of this thesis is a collaboration with Joel Gehman (University of Alberta). I was responsible for the concept formation, data collection and analysis, and the manuscript composition. Joel Gehman contributed to concept formation, data interpretation and manuscript edits. This study has been published as J.-F. Soublière and J. Gehman, “The Legitimacy Threshold Revisited: How Prior Successes and Failures Spill Over to Other Endeavors on Kickstarter,” Academy of Management Journal, In-Press. iv (à ma banane et à mes cocos) v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS In am indebted to many who have lent a hand in shaping my research program in various ways. First, I would like to thank my supervisory committee for their unwavering support. More especially, I would like to express my gratitude to Joel Gehman for his continuous encouragement and help in pushing my work forward. Thank you for always being the kind of advisor I needed at all the different stages of this journey. I also greatly benefited from the guidance of Dev Jennings and Mike Lounsbury. Thank you both for raising the bar and helping me think about how I could make my work more relevant. I learned immensely from Mary Ann Glynn and the time I spent at Boston College. Thank you for your gentle nudges and your prodding feedback. I am additionally grateful to John Amis, Shaz Ansari, Emily Block, Oana Branzei, David Deephouse, Giuseppe Delmestri, James Dunn, Bob Eberhart, Micki Eisenman, Joel Gehman, Simona Giorgi, Mary Ann Glynn, Nina Granqvist, Royston Greenwood, Ali Gümüsay, Richard Haans, Tim Hannigan, Leanne Hedberg, Daniel Hjorth, Dev Jennings, Jennifer Jennings, Ann Langley, Christi Lockwood, Isabelle Le Breton-Miller, Mike Lounsbury, Chang Lu, Fareesa Malik, Emilio Marti, Alan Meyer, Alex Murray, Paola Ometto, Nicholas Poggioli, Davide Ravasi, Trish Reay, Violina Rindova, Marc-David Seidel, Pat Thornton, Balagopal Vissa, Maxim Voronov, Milo Wang, Marvin Washington, Daphne Yiu, Lori Yue, Asma Zafar, and anonymous conference and journal reviewers for their valuable feedback on earlier iterations of these included studies. Among those who provided input on this work, I would like to single out Christi Lockwood. I gained much from our many conversations. Especially, the study presented in Chapter 4 was meaningfully influenced by our exchanges. I also benefited from feedback offered by participants of the 2015 Canadian Council for Small Business and Entrepreneurship Conference, the Administrative Sciences Association of Canada 2016 Conference, the 2016 and 2018 Academy of Management Annual Meeting, the 32nd and 34th European Group for Organization Studies Colloquium, the 16th West Coast Research Symposium on Technology Entrepreneurship, the 4th and 5th Triennial Alberta Institutions Conference Doctoral Consortium, the 3rd Annual University of Edinburgh Business School Paper Development Workshop on Organisational and Institutional Change, the 13th and 15th West Coast Research Symposium on Technology Entrepreneurship Doctoral Consortium, the 2018 OMT Writing and Reviewing Workshop, the 9th Kauffman Doctoral Consortium at the Smith Entrepreneurship Research Conference, the 2017 OMT Dissertation Proposal Workshop, the 2018 vi OMT Doctoral Student Consortium, the PDW on Writing Theory Papers for Organization Studies and the Academy of Management Review at EGOS, the 2016 Alberta School of Business Research Conference Day, and the SMO seminars at the Alberta School of Business. I gratefully acknowledge funding support from the Andrew Stewart Memorial Graduate Prize, the Izaak Walton Killam Memorial Scholarship, the Queen Elizabeth II Graduate Scholarship, the ALTIF Graduate Award in Entrepreneurship & Innovation, the J. Gordin Kaplan Graduate Student Award, as well as the Business PhD Office, the Department of Strategic Management and Organization, and the Graduate Students’ Association at the University of Alberta, and my advisor Joel Gehman. I was fortunate to go through this journey with my Ph.D. siblings, Asma, Leanne and Paola. Above all, I am infinitely grateful to my partner, Marie-Claire, for her love and support. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract...................................................................................................................................... ii Preface ...................................................................................................................................... iv Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................... vi List of Tables ............................................................................................................................ xi List of Figures .......................................................................................................................... xii Chapter 1 Overview................................................................................................................... 1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 2 Study 1: We’ve Got Your Back ............................................................................................... 2 Study 2: The Legitimacy Threshold Revisited ........................................................................ 3 Study 3: Four Pathways Towards Cultural resonance ........................................................... 5 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................. 6 Chapter 2 We’ve Got Your Back! How Double Fine and their 90,000 Backers Constituted What it Meant