deming research

Research Spotlight: The Data Behind Who You Should Ask For Funding

Anonymous — Thu, 02 Feb 2023 07:00:00 +0000

Research Spotlight: The Data Behind Who You Should Ask For Funding Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 02/02/2023 - 00:00

Lauren Gwyn

Experienced founders and investors are the heartbeats behind any new venture ecosystem. They have the right funding, resources, and expertise to make a new business thrive. Dejun “Tony” Kong, �鶹ӰԺ (CU �鶹ӰԺ) Associate Professor of Organizational Leadership and Behavioral Analysis at the Leeds School of Business, is one of the scholars spearheading difficult-to-answer questions about entrepreneurial investments. Published in the Journal of Business Venturing, Tony, along with Curtis L. Wesley, Connor J. Lubojacky, M. Kim Saxton, and Todd Saxton, wrote the paper “Will the startup succeed in your eyes? Venture evaluation of resource providers during entrepreneurs' informational signaling”. Their entrepreneurial research surveyed over 200 pitch evaluations from nearly 100 startups and survey respondents over six years. Their work demonstrated the importance of start-up culture and the type of investor founders should focus on when building a business.

Tony was born and grew up in Shanghai, China. When asked about his childhood, he mentions how he was a singer for 10 years, and performed in almost all the theaters in Shanghai. He jokes how maybe “that’s why I am artistic and creative at heart.” Nowadays, Tony spends his time singing just in the shower and writing complex theoretical data-driven discussions on entrepreneurship. Now that’s range!

At the turning point in Tony’s life, he had an internship with Fortune Magazine in New York City, where he conducted business research and interviewed impactful individuals. This inspired him to pursue his Ph.D. and then an academic career. Tony's research attracted one of CU �鶹ӰԺ's top podcasts that "distills entrepreneurship research into actionable insights": Creative Distillation.

The podcast is hosted by Deming’s own Brad Werner and Jeff York. In Episode 34, Tony mentions:

“Entrepreneurial literature is a really theoretical challenge. There is no theory on what’s in the mind of founders. What is the experience driving their funding decisions?”

Before Tony joined the team, this paper had a completely different focus. He was invited to work on the project by his former colleague at the University of Houston, Curtis Wesley. Tony saw the data and realized there might be a better perspective to take, and proposed that the team change the theoretical focus. Through informed risk-taking, they completely changed what the paper was about, and after many revisions, were able to successfully publish the paper.

The new theoretical focus looks at three categories of people considering investing in new ventures. People with just investment experience, people with investment experience and founder experience, and people with just founder experience. When questioned about the results of his work, Tony recommends this:

“Based on our correlational data, I would recommend that aspiring entrepreneurs approach investors with founding experience. People who have founding experience are more willing to give advice to budding entrepreneurs, as well as support.”

Having adequate financial investments is not the only important predictor of success for a company. Tony hopes that the �鶹ӰԺ Start-up community creates and continues to create a space “where entrepreneurial ideas are exchanged, information and advice are shared, and support is provided.”

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Spotlight: Creative Distillation Is Changing Things Up! Season 4 Airs on Thursday, December 22, 2022

Anonymous — Thu, 15 Dec 2022 07:00:00 +0000

Spotlight: Creative Distillation Is Changing Things Up! Season 4 Airs on Thursday, December 22, 2022 Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 12/15/2022 - 00:00

Stefani Harrison

Creative Distillation is back for its fourth season and is better than ever! For those new to our podcast, each episode of Creative Distillation is hosted by the Deming Center for Entrepreneurship’s Research Director Jeff York and Faculty Director Brad Werner, who distill entrepreneurship research into actionable insights while enjoying the craft beverages of artisans and entrepreneurs.

“I continue to be inspired by the creativity and craft of the entrepreneurs we meet and the insights researchers are producing. It’s always interesting to hear Brad’s take on the research and how it might apply to real entrepreneurs. I think he’s been surprised by how passionate professors are about their research, and the many interesting problems they are tackling,” says co-host Jeff York.

This season, we visit several breweries in our home, �鶹ӰԺ, Colorado, then take a road trip to Los Angeles, to bring you guests from across the globe to discuss their stories and the latest research. But that’s not all! Last season, Creative Distillation surpassed 10,000 listens! To thank our amazing listeners, we are bringing a new format, cover, theme song, intro, and best of all … weekly releases for you to enjoy.

Tune in Thursday, December 22nd for Camp Christmas & Season 4 Preview, the first episode of the season, with an extra shot of holiday cheer as we join Lonnie Hanzon at Denver’s Camp Christmas. Then join us every Thursday for new episodes that alternate between field research with local brews and the latest entrepreneurship research with our guests.

This season is packed with crazy adventures, including dancing professors, rat attacks, an extra cheery Christmas tree, and guest appearances from the Deming Center’s staff. You won’t want to miss this!

For an extra helping of holiday cheer this year, Jeff and Brad have released a trailer for the new season. Listen below or go to pod.link/creativedistillation to listen on all your favorite podcast platforms.

See you next Thursday!

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Creative Distillation · Season 4 Trailer

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Subscribe to Creative Distillation wherever you get your podcasts and leave a review. You can also support us by sharing your favorite episode with a friend or sharing it on social media and tagging the Deming Center for Entrepreneurship or @demingpulse.

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The Rise of Entrepreneurship Research

Anonymous — Wed, 01 May 2019 18:08:02 +0000

The Rise of Entrepreneurship Research Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 05/01/2019 - 12:08

Jeffrey G. York

Academic research on entrepreneurship has emerged as a major focus area within business schools over the last 20 years. The Leeds School of Business has long sought to populate the field with highly-trained, effective researchers that have filled positions across the United States and the world.

Leeds was one of the earliest schools to train scholars specifically to understand entrepreneurship, from a strategic, organizational and individual level of analysis.

Perhaps it’s a byproduct of being surrounded by the thriving �鶹ӰԺ entrepreneurial ecosystem, the longstanding tradition of westerners constantly searching, or the inspiring beauty of the Colorado front range, but regardless of the reason, Leeds has consistently produced (and hired) some of the top scholars in innovation and entrepreneurship.

The value of PhD programs

From a business perspective, PhD programs might seem a bit odd. We dedicate years of time and money to develop scholars, then we send them away to other universities; indeed, traditionally almost no major research schools hire their own graduates. This tradition is one of ensuring diversity in thought amongst the faculty, as well as providing a public good through training scholars to be hired elsewhere. However, it is a mistake to underestimate the impact our PhD program has on fostering a greater knowledge base on how entrepreneurs think, act, and succeed. By training generations of scholars in entrepreneurship research, the Leeds school has made great contributions to the scholarly field of entrepreneurship.

The research and teaching conducted by these scholars continues to foster a proud tradition of entrepreneurial scholarship around the globe. We at the Deming Center support this tradition by directly funding and encouraging research on entrepreneurship by our PhD students and faculty. While our faculty and PhD students know about the contribution Leeds has made over the years, not as many of our non-PhD students, alumni, and other stakeholders are aware. Therefore, we are going to periodically focus at the activities of our PhD alumni in this newsletter.

Spotlight on a PhD alum

One of our PhD alumni, Jeff McMullen, is the Dale M. Coleman Chair in Management and Professor of Entrepreneurship at the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University. Jeff is also Editor-In-Chief of the Journal of Business Venturing (JBV), widely considered one of the finest academic journals focused on entrepreneurship research. He has published multiple influential articles on the nature of entrepreneurial opportunity, social entrepreneurship, and the motivations of entrepreneurs.

Jeff’s recent editorial “A wakeup call for the field or entrepreneurship and its evaluators,” seeks to do more than make a research contribution. Instead, it highlights how far the field of entrepreneurship has come in recent years and explains that entrepreneurship journals are now on par with the best journals in other business school disciplines.

The field of entrepreneurship

While the scholarly field of entrepreneurship has grown roughly along the same time period as the internet (a coincidence?) as Jeff puts it we can sometimes “…fall into the trap of assuming that the past is still representative of the present. But just as technologies, companies and even entire industries rise and fall over time in the business worlds, so do journals and entire fields of research.”

And entrepreneurship has certainly risen as a field. There are now three entrepreneurship journals, including JBV, Entrepreneurship Theory & Practice (ET&P), and Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal (SEJ) that are respectively ranked 10, 16, and 34 for influence and reach by the Web of Science, the common bar for determining scholarly impact. In one illustration from his article Jeff compares the journal impact factor, a yearly measure of citations of a journal across these three entrepreneurship journals and elite management journals.

Two things to note from his analysis. First, the entrepreneurship journals (JBV, ETP, SEJ) compare favorably with the very best journals in strategy (SMJ) organizational behavior (JAP) organizational theory (Org Sci) and operations (Mgt Sci). Second, one can easily see that comparing journals in 2013 yields a very different result than 2017. While it was a valid observation in 2013 that entrepreneurship journals had less impact, that is no longer the case. Further, each of these entrepreneurship journals are included in the Financial Times 50, a list of publications often used in determining business school rankings.

The rise of entrepreneurship journals doesn’t just matter for the sake of the important knowledge produced in them (often by Leeds alumni) but also because they offer a legitimized outlet for scholarship in a field that was once a “niche” interest.

This is important news for non-scholars that care about entrepreneurship as a part of business schools’ faculty, curriculum, and focus. Without these journals, entrepreneurship faculty may struggle to find outlets for cutting edge work, and thus not get hired or promoted within business schools. Without these scholars, business schools cannot effectively teach, research, and contribute to entrepreneurship as a field. Jeff’s work as a leading thinker in the field and in advocating for its quality is just one example of how Deming’s support of PhD students yields long-term results far beyond the bounds of Leeds and Colorado.

With the support of all of our stakeholders we look forward to continuing to help foster great entrepreneurship scholars for a long time to come!

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What drives entrepreneurial success?

Anonymous — Tue, 09 Oct 2018 18:56:27 +0000

What drives entrepreneurial success? Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 10/09/2018 - 12:56

Jessica Jones

�鶹ӰԺ is a hot spot for nonstop chatter around who founds startups and how they leverage existing networks and knowledge for success. Two Leeds PhD students have focused part of their dissertation on digging deeper into the opportunities and constraints for startup founders. In our new series, Research Insights, enjoy a brief overview of what they’re working on. Keep your eye on them—they graduate this year and will continue to provide important insights to founders, startup firms and startup communities around the world!

The potential consequences of getting “the” exit

Kun Zhang studies tech communities and social networks to understand the underlying consequences of partnering with prominent affiliates. Often, high-tech ventures have their eye on the prize when it comes to fundraising and growth. They seek to affiliate with the most prominent venture capital firms and alliance partners. But when they do, Kun finds there is a potential consequence of losing the employees that make the firm most valuable. High-tech employees benefit from the partner affiliation to the extent that they may leave the firm, and take important knowledge (the know-how and know-who) with them.

These findings lead us to keep asking more questions: In such collaborative and open source entrepreneurial communities, how protective should entrepreneurs be with valuable technology and employees? How inseparable are employees and the technology they develop? How do investors mitigate risk of the very thing they invest in? Kun hopes to take this finding and further explore how collaborating with prominent partners has on the competitive advantage of high-tech firms.

The experience of women in accelerators

Jessica Kirk studies stereotyping of women in entrepreneurship. A pressing question in entrepreneurship today is how to increase women participating and succeeding in entrepreneurship. Anecdotal evidence suggests that new venture teams with more women may have fundamentally different experiences in mentorship and support. In her first study, she finds that team composition is evaluated differently based on gender composition.

How can both men and women provide a supportive and inclusive environment for all founders? What other factors drive the opportunities and constraints that women experience at the earliest stages of developing their ventures? Jessica hopes to find out as she is building on this study to examine the experience of female founders over time within the accelerator process.

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ScratchWorks FinTech Accelerator

Anonymous — Wed, 21 Mar 2018 21:47:20 +0000

ScratchWorks FinTech Accelerator Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 03/21/2018 - 15:47

Erick Mueller

Welcome to ScratchWorks: a new FinTech Accelerator that launched last week at the Barron's Summit in Orlando. The goal of this accelerator program is to place a spotlight on innovative tech companies that are transforming the financial services industry. Scratchworks provides a stage for these companies to present to five investors who manage assets in excess of $60 billion, in hopes of securing funding or partnerships to propel their ventures.

"The goal of this accelerator program is to place a spotlight on innovative tech companies that are transforming the financial services industry."

The event was live, in front of over three hundred investment professionals.The company concepts ranged from robo-advisors to automated marketing for advisors to a mobile wealth manager app. You could feel the tension, the excitement, and the energy in the room as these ventures presented and negotiated with the investors. It was awesome!

While there were many amazing elements of this new program, perhaps the most impressive is that we developed this in just a few months. We were entrepreneurial! We created this new program in collaboration with the Burridge Center for Finance at Leeds along with Fidelity, Barron's and eMoney. We saw a need in the industry, did our research, and created and executed a plan.

And the result? FinTech companies injecting their innovative ideas into the industry and raising the bar. Pretty darn cool. We look forward to next year ...

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