Research

Presentations: INSEAD Doriot Entrepreneurship Conference,  European Group for Organizational Studies, 2024 AOM Symposium on Inequality and Entrepreneurship,  Global Entrepreneurship and Innovation Research Conference

How do norms about family shape which new ventures survive and grow?  This paper investigates how the arrival of Syrian refugees in Jordan impacted the performance trajectories of new firms based on their initial funding sources. Using a difference-in-differences strategy, leveraging variation in the intensity of the refugee crisis at the governate level and panel data on new firms, we find that refugee inflows significantly decreased the survival chances of family-funded firms while improving the survival of market-logic firms that were otherwise on similar trends prior to the arrival of refugees. We argue that these findings can be explained by the literature suggesting that funding partners imprint institutional logics in new firms. Family funding carries a “family logic” that obliges founders to divert resources toward kin in times of need. Bank funding embodies a “market logic” focused on instrumental exchange and profit maximization. When widespread displacement strained household networks, family-funded firms shouldered the burden, while bank-funded firms remained free to adapt.

How do changing norms about race and gender shape organizational practices? We examine how the political partisanship of a firm’s workforce shaped their hiring responses in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder. The killing marked a pivotal moment in American public discourse, sparking widespread protests for racial equity but also increasing the political polarization around DEI. Using campaign finance data, we construct a firm-level measure of political leaning based on the partisan donations of employees across 705 companies in the Fortune 500 and S&P 500. We then track hiring for DEI-related positions before and after Floyd’s murder. Prior to the event, liberal- and conservative-leaning firms created DEI roles at similar rates. Afterward, however, We find a sharp divergence: liberal firms dramatically increased DEI hiring, while conservative firms showed little change. 

How do formal and informal institutions interact to shape which incumbents entrepreneurs surive? In my job market paper, I build on the puzzle introduced in the first chapter of my dissertation published in Administrative Science Quarterly. While the earlier chapter focused on why changes in formal institutions failed to increase women entrepreneurship, this chapter turns to survival and growth. Specifically, I study why incumbent women entrepreneurs are more likely to leave entrepreneurship when changes in formal institutions lower barriers to entrepreneurship, even though prior theories would predict that they would be more likely to remain in entrepreneurship after these changes. To study this, I focus on another natural experiment in Mexico: the rapid expansion of Banco Azteca branches, which significantly expanded access to credit for informal entrepreneurs who previously had few, if any, opportunities for credit. While prior research predicts that women who are more constrained in accessing credit should benefit most from such changes in terms of survival, I find the opposite. Using a difference-in-differences design, I show that expanded credit accelerated exits from entrepreneurship to wage work among women while it increased firm survival and growth for male entrepreneurs. To explain these gendered exits, I draw from organizatoinal ecology and emerging research on “Plan B” entrepreneurship to show how expanded credit access both pulled some women into better wage opportunities and pushed others out through heightened competition. I explore these mechanisms empirically and find patterns consistent with both and less consistent with alternatives. 

In this paper, we explore how cultural beliefs about neighborhoods shape entrepreneurial finance. Prior research largely attributes lower growth rates in disadvantaged neighborhoods to material factors, such as differences in human or social capital. However, these factors alone often fail to explain persistent disparities. We argue that cultural beliefs about neighborhoods or neighborhood stigma might explain these differences. To study this, we conducted an audit study, sending real loan inquiries to every bank branch in the Czech Republic, randomly varying the neighborhood where the firm was based. The results show that firms associated with stigmatized neighborhoods received fewer and less engaged responses, even when all other attributes about the firms remained constant. These findings highlight how informal institutions, specifically, cultural beliefs about neighborhoods, can meaningfully shape access to finance for new firms, even when all other firm characteristics are held constant.