20 research outputs found
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The evolution and adoption of equity crowdfunding: entrepreneur and investor entry into a new market
Equity crowdfunding (ECF) offers entrepreneurs an online social media marketplace where they can access numerous potential investors who, in exchange for an ownership stake, may supply them with finance. In this paper, we describe the evolution of this market in the UK. Using an inductive qualitative longitudinal research design, we analyse the emerging views of entrepreneurs and investors towards ECF. Our interviewees include large and small-scale investors, as well as market participants who have chosen not to invest or raise funds via ECF. We find that the large financial flows to entrepreneurs in the UK via the ECF platforms, nearly half a billion GBP since 2011, have probably been largely incremental to traditional sources of early stage entrepreneurial finance. Moreover, our research indicates that for the most part, investors appear to understand and appropriately evaluate the risks that they are bearing; ECF investments are perceived as a high risk, high return component within individuals’ portfolios. Investors also use their communication with peers and entrepreneurs via the ECF platform as a learning tool. On the entrepreneurs’ side, ECF allows them to test their products, to develop their brand, to build a loyal customer base and to turn customers into investors. We conclude that policymakers, with the support of a locally appropriate regulatory framework, could support equity crowdfunding as one of the market choices available for entrepreneurs looking to start or grow their ventures
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Occupy Wall Street ten years on: how its disruptive institutional entrepreneurship spread and why it fizzled
How does media impact institutional entrepreneurs and their ability to create change? We draw from research on social movements and media frames to examine the paradox that media-informed discursive opportunities pose for institutional entrepreneurs engaged in efforts to transform or create social institutions. Through content analysis of 8473 newspaper articles covering the 2011 Occupy Wall Street movement, we highlight the paradox of discursive opportunities: the same types of media frames that initially encourage more disruptive tactics also subsequently increase the perceived threat of such disruption, thereby encouraging swifter counteraction. Our findings hold implications for the importance of media as a potential catalyst for entrepreneurial activity in the realm of social movements hoping to engage in reform