Entrepreneurial Optimism in the Market for Technological Inventions

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Dushnitsky, Gary
• 署名单位: University of Pennsylvania
• 刊物名称: ORGANIZATION SCIENCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1047-7039
• DOI: 10.1287/orsc.1090.0454
• 发表日期: 2010
• 页码: 150-167
• 关键词: entrepreneur; invention; investor; optimism; over-confidence; Cognitive bias

摘要

How do potentially optimistic entrepreneurs attract prospective investors? We investigate an entrepreneur's decision to pursue either disclosure-where investors inspect the invention-or a contingent payment scheme (CPS) offer (e.g., salary deferral, royalty-based license)-where an invention's value is inferred from the entrepreneur's willingness to make her pay contingent on the invention's success. Using a parsimonious model, we highlight the role of optimism and demonstrate that it only affects CPS ex post. As a result, a novel trade-off unfolds ex ante: In choosing an action that maximizes the valuation of the invention, a moderately wealthy entrepreneur weighs optimism discount ( affecting CPS) versus imitation discount ( affecting disclosure). More broadly, the paper advances a view of entrepreneurs as optimists, thus departing from the prevailing approach, which characterizes entrepreneurs as opportunistic individuals who consciously pursue self-serving goals.