To Invest or Not to Invest: Using Vocal Behavior to Predict Decisions of Investors in an Entrepreneurial Context

Entrepreneurial pitch competitions have become increasinglypopular in the start-up culture to attract prospective investors. As theultimate funding decision often follows from some form of social interaction,it is important to understand how the decision-making processof investors is influenced by behavioral cues. In this work, we examinewhether vocal features are associated with the ultimate funding decisionof investors by utilizing deep learning methods.We used videos of individualsin an entrepreneurial pitch competition as input to predict whetherinvestors will invest in the startup or not. We proposed models that combinedeep audio features and Handcrafted audio Features (HaF) and feedthem into two types of Recurrent Neural Networks (RNN), namely LongShort-Term Memory (LSTM) and Gated Recurrent Units (GRU). Wealso trained the RNNs with only deep features to assess whether HaFprovide additional information to the models. Our results show that it ispromising to use vocal behavior of pitchers to predict whether investorswill invest in their business idea. Different types of RNNs yielded similarperformance, yet the addition of HaF improved the performance

To Invest or Not to Invest: Using Vocal Behavior to Predict Decisions of Investors in an Entrepreneurial Context

Entrepreneurial pitch competitions have become increasinglypopular in the start-up culture to attract prospective investors. As theultimate funding decision often follows from some form of social interaction,it is important to understand how the decision-making processof investors is influenced by behavioral cues. In this work, we examinewhether vocal features are associated with the ultimate funding decisionof investors by utilizing deep learning methods.We used videos of individualsin an entrepreneurial pitch competition as input to predict whetherinvestors will invest in the startup or not. We proposed models that combinedeep audio features and Handcrafted audio Features (HaF) and feedthem into two types of Recurrent Neural Networks (RNN), namely LongShort-Term Memory (LSTM) and Gated Recurrent Units (GRU). Wealso trained the RNNs with only deep features to assess whether HaFprovide additional information to the models. Our results show that it ispromising to use vocal behavior of pitchers to predict whether investorswill invest in their business idea. Different types of RNNs yielded similarperformance, yet the addition of HaF improved the performance

The Influence of Entrepreneurs’ Physical and Cognitive Traits on Entrepreneurial Outcomes

The dissertation examines the effect of two separate yet significant individual level factors—physical and cognitive traits—on entrepreneurial outcomes. The physical factor on which the dissertation focuses is the entrepreneur’s vocal cues and the cognitive traits that the dissertation investigates are the entrepreneur’s goal orientation and his/her ability to take perspectives. Using theories of information processing and expectancy violations, the dissertation examines whether and how vocal attractiveness impacts individual investors’ information retention, attraction towards the venture, and willingness to invest. The results from controlled lab experiments across two samples suggest that vocal attractiveness increases information retention and venture attraction and the effect of vocal attractiveness on entrepreneurial outcomes is mediated through processing fluency and positive affect. Also, the effects of vocal attractiveness on processing fluency and positive affect is conditional on whether the investors’ expectations regarding the entrepreneurs’ vocal attractiveness is positively or negatively violated. Thus, entrepreneurs’ vocal attractiveness facilitates information retention and leads to higher levels of venture attraction through cognitive and affective routes and investors’ expectations play an important role in their decision-making. The dissertation also examines the impact of entrepreneurs’ sex and gendered voice on entrepreneurial outcomes. Entrepreneurs often portray their masculinity or femininity through gendered voice. Using the gender role stereotyping theory, the dissertation identifies sex-typed services or products offered by the entrepreneurs as another source of information that investors can readily access and incorporate in their decision-making. Contrary to the extant literature, the dissertation finds that wholesale adoption of masculinity during pitching entrepreneurial ventures is detrimental, especially for female entrepreneurs. The results from a controlled lab experiment suggest that, investors are more likely to invest when entrepreneurs present a masculine (feminine) service in a masculine (feminine) voice, irrespective of their biological sex. Thus, investors don’t always prefer masculinity over femininity in entrepreneurial pitching, rather, investors’ decisions are impacted by the interactions of entrepreneurs’ sex, gendered voice, and sex-typed services or products offered by the entrepreneurs. Finally, the dissertation examines the effect of cognitive traits on entrepreneurial creativity. Creativity lies at the heart of entrepreneurship as entrepreneurs often start with a creative idea that they turn into a viable venture. Using the goal orientation theory, the dissertation suggests that goal orientation is an antecedent of entrepreneurial creativity and the effect of goal orientation on entrepreneurial creativity is partially mediated through entrepreneurs’ ability to take users’ perspectives. In addition, the indirect effects of perspective taking on entrepreneurial creativity is contingent on individual-level moderators such as entrepreneurial exhaustion and experience. The results from two cross-sectional surveys of entrepreneurship students and a two-wave, lagged survey of entrepreneurs suggest that perspective taking mediates the relationship between goal orientation and entrepreneurial creativity and the indirect effects of perspective taking is conditional on the personal-level moderators. Thus, the dissertation disentangles the role of cognitive processes in facilitating entrepreneurial creativity

A multimodal approach to persuasion in oral presentations : the case of conference presentations, research dissemination talks and product pitches

Esta tesis presenta un estudio multimodal y etnográfico del uso de estrategias persuasivas en tres géneros orales: presentaciones en conferencias, charlas de divulgación científica, y presentaciones de productos. Estos géneros comparten un importante componente persuasivo: los tres se dirigen a una audiencia tratando de convencerles del valor de un producto, servicio, o investigación. Sin embargo, se usan en dos contextos profesionales diferentes: el académico y el económico, por lo que cabe esperar que consigan su propósito comunicativo de forma diferente. Por otra parte, recientes estudios muestran como distintos discursos, tienden a adoptar cada vez más rasgos promocionales (promocionalización del discurso). En vista de ello, es factible establecer como hipótesis que los tres géneros están relacionados interdiscursivamente, y un estudio multimodal y etnográfico del uso de la persuasión en dichos géneros puede ayudar a clarificar las relaciones existentes entre ellos, así como sus diferencias.This thesis is a multimodal and ethnographic study of the use of persuasive strategies in three oral genres conference presentations, research dissemination talks and product pitches. These presentations share a strong persuasive component in their communicative purpose: the three of them address an audience to convince them of the value of a product, a service or a piece of research. However, they are used in business and academia by different discourse communities in different contexts, and therefore they can be expected to achieve their communicative goals in different ways. In addition, research suggests that there is a trend towards promotionalization of different discourses, among which academic discourse is included. In view of this, I hypothesize that these three genres are intertextually and interdiscursively related, and that a multimodal and ethnographic study of the use of persuasion in them can help to shed some light on these relationships and differences

A multimodal apprach to persuasion in oral presentations: The case of conference presentations, research dissemination talks and product pitches

Esta tesis presenta un estudio multimodal y etnográfico del uso de estrategias persuasivas en tres géneros orales: presentaciones en conferencias, charlas de divulgación científica, y presentaciones de productos. Estos géneros comparten un importante componente persuasivo: los tres se dirigen a una audiencia tratando de convencerles del valor de un producto, servicio, o investigación. Sin embargo, se usan en dos contextos profesionales diferentes: el académico y el económico, por lo que cabe esperar que consigan su propósito comunicativo de forma diferente. Por otra parte, recientes estudios muestran como distintos discursos, tienden a adoptar cada vez más rasgos promocionales (promocionalización del discurso). En vista de ello, es factible establecer como hipótesis que los tres géneros están relacionados interdiscursivamente, y un estudio multimodal y etnográfico del uso de la persuasión en dichos géneros puede ayudar a clarificar las relaciones existentes entre ellos, así como sus diferencias.This thesis is a multimodal and ethnographic study of the use of persuasive strategies in three oral genres conference presentations, research dissemination talks and product pitches. These presentations share a strong persuasive component in their communicative purpose: the three of them address an audience to convince them of the value of a product, a service or a piece of research. However, they are used in business and academia by different discourse communities in different contexts, and therefore they can be expected to achieve their communicative goals in different ways. In addition, research suggests that there is a trend towards promotionalization of different discourses, among which academic discourse is included. In view of this, I hypothesize that these three genres are intertextually and interdiscursively related, and that a multimodal and ethnographic study of the use of persuasion in them can help to shed some light on these relationships and differences