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This study aims to explore gender performance in entrepreneurial pitching. Understanding pitching as a social practice, the authors argue that pitch content and body gestures contain gender-based norms and practices. The authors focus on early-stage ventures and the hegemonic masculinities and femininities that are performed in entrepreneurial pitches. The main research question is as follows: How is gender performed in entrepreneurial pitching?

The authors carried out the study with the post-structuralist feminist approach. The authors collected and analyzed nine online pitches with the reflexive thematic method to depict hegemonic masculinities and femininities performed at the pitch.

The authors found that heroic and breadwinner masculinities are dominant in pitching. Both male and female founders perform hegemonic masculinities. Entrepreneurs are expected to be assertive but empathetic people. Finally, there are connections between what entrepreneurs do and what investors ask, indicating the iteration of gender performance and expectations.

While the online setting helps the authors to collect data during the pandemic, it limits the observation of the place, space and interactions between the judges/investors and the entrepreneurs. As a result, the linguistic and gesture communication of the investors in the pitch was not discussed in full-length in this paper. Also, as the authors observed, people would come to the pitch knowing what they should perform and how they should interact. Therefore, the preparation of the pitch as a study context could provide rich details on how gender norms and stereotypes influence people's interactions and their entrepreneurial identity. Lastly, the study has a methodological limitation. The authors did not include aspects of space in the analysis. It is mainly due to the variety of settings that the pitching sessions that the data set had.

For social practices and policies, the results indicate barriers to finance for women entrepreneurs. Women entrepreneurs are rewarded when they perform entrepreneurial hegemonic masculinities with a touch of emphasized femininities. Eventually, if women entrepreneurs do not perform correctly as investors expect them to, they will face barriers to acquiring finance. It is important to acknowledge how certain gendered biases might be (re)constructed and (re)produced through entrepreneurial activities, in which pitching is one of them.

Practitioners could utilize research findings to understand how gender stereotypes exist not only on the pitch stage but also before and after the pitch, such as the choice of business idea and pitch training. In other words, it is necessary to create a more enabling environment for women entrepreneurs, such as customizing the accelerator program so that all business ideas receive relevant support from experts. On a macro level, the study has shown that seemingly gender-equal societies do not practically translate into higher participation of women in entrepreneurship.

For theoretical contributions, the study enhances the discussion that entrepreneurship is gendered; women and men entrepreneurs need to perform certain hegemonic traits to be legitimated as founders. The authors also address various pitching practices that shape pitch performance by including both textual and semiotic data in the study. This study provides social implications on the awareness of gendered norms and the design of entrepreneurial pitching.

Since the beginning of the 2000s, investors have more frequently invested into professional football clubs, thereby radically changing the industry landscape. This review's purpose is to analyze and synthesize the state of research to understand motives, roles and implications of football club investors, and to provide recommendations for further research.

The paper presents an integrative literature review by identifying relevant English articles based on the search terms investor, owner, investment, ownership, shareholder and stakeholder in combination with soccer or football. Around 2,431 articles were reviewed. A total of 129 relevant articles was analyzed and synthesized within eight subject areas.

Investors in professional club football is a young research stream with a clear European focus. Investor motives and roles are diverse and implications are multidimensional. Investors mostly aim for indirect returns rather than pure profit- or win-maximization.

Football clubs comprise an own investment class for which the identified, unique specifics must be considered to develop a financially successful investment model. Thorough academic research of investors' inherent characteristics, investor-club pairings and the pillars of long-term strategies for successful investor-club liaisons are avenues of future research. Furthermore, the results illustrate the need for research outside of Europe.

The paper is the first systematic, integrative review of existing literature in the domain of equity investments into professional club football. The findings genuinely show that, depending on the investor type and ownership structure, investors have a wide impact in professional club football.

Market sentiment has shown to influence housing prices in the global north, but in emerging economies, the nexus is rare to chance on in the current state of science for policy direction. More importantly in the recent decade where policymakers are yet to conclude on the myriad of factors confronting the housing market in sub-Saharan Africa inhibiting affordability. This paper therefore examines the impact of market sentiment on house prices in South Africa.

The study used the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) approach with quarterly data spanning from 2005Q1 to 2020Q4.

In all, it was established that market sentiment plays a minimal role in the property market in South Africa. But there was enough evidence of cointegration from the bound test between sentiment and house prices. Nevertheless, the lag values of sentiment pointed to a rise in house prices. Exchange rate volatilities and inflation had a statistically significant effect on prices in both the long and short term, respectively.

Policymakers could still monitor market sentiment in the housing market due to the strong chemistry between house prices and sentiment, as evidenced from the bound test, but focus on economic fundamentals as the main policy tool for house price reduction.

The findings and the creation of the sentiment index make an invaluable contribution to the paper and add to the paucity of literature on the study of market sentiment in the housing market.

The purpose of this study is to design a closed hydrostatic guideway has the ability to resist large-side load, pitch moments and yaw moments, has good stiffness and damping characteristics, and provides certain beneficial guidance for the design of large-span closed hydrostatic guideway on the basis of providing a large vertical load bearing capacity.

The Reynolds’ equation and flow continuity equation are solved simultaneously by the finite difference method, and the perturbation method and the finite disturbance method is used for calculating the dynamic characteristics. The static and dynamic characteristics, including recess pressure, flow of lubricating oil, carrying capacity, pitch moment, yaw moment, dynamic stiffness and damping, are comprehensively analyzed.

The designed closed hydrostatic guideway has the ability to resist large lateral load, pitch moment and yaw moment and has good stiffness and damping characteristics, on the basis of being able to provide large vertical carrying capacity, which can meet the application requirements of heavy two-plate injection molding machine (TPIMM).

This paper researches static and dynamic characteristics of a large-span six-slider closed hydrostatic guideway used in heavy TPIMM, emphatically considering pitch moment and yaw moment. Some useful guidance is given for the design of large-span closed hydrostatic guideway.

This research presents and evaluates a method for assessing the entrepreneurial mindset (EM) of students in higher education.

The research considers EM a multi-variable psychological construct, which can be broken down into several conceptual sub-categories. Using data from a master course in entrepreneurship, the authors show how these categories can be applied to analyze students’ written reflections to identify linguistic markers of EM.

The research reports three main findings: analyzing student reflections is an appropriate method to explore the state and development of students’ EM; the theoretically-derived EM categories can be nuanced and extended with insight from contextualized empirical insights; and student reflections reveal counter-EM categories that represent challenges in the educator’s endeavor to foster students’ EM.

The commitment of resources to researching EM requires the dedication of efforts to develop methods for assessing the state and development of students’ EM. The framework can be applied to enhance the theoretical rigor and methodological transparency of studies of EM in entrepreneurship education.

The framework can be of value to educators who currently struggle to assess if and how their educational design fosters EM attributes.

This inquiry contributes to the critical research discussion about how to operationalize EM in entrepreneurship education studies. The operationalization of a psychological concept such as EM is highly important because a research focus cannot be maintained on something that cannot be studied in a meaningful way.

This paper aims to obtain the evolution law of dynamic performance of CR400BF electric multiple unit (EMU).

Using the dynamic simulation based on field test, stiffness of rotary arm nodes and damping coefficient of anti-hunting dampers were tested. Stiffness, damping coefficient, friction coefficient, track gauge were taken as random variables, the stochastic dynamics simulation method was constructed and applied to research the evolution law with running mileage of dynamic index of CR400BF EMU.

The results showed that stiffness and damping coefficient subjected to normal distribution, the mean and variance were computed and the evolution law of stiffness and damping coefficient with running mileage was obtained.

Firstly, based on the field test we found that stiffness of rotary arm nodes and damping coefficient of anti-hunting dampers subjected to normal distribution, and the evolution law of stiffness and damping coefficient with running mileage was proposed. Secondly stiffness, damping coefficient, friction coefficient, track gauge were taken as random variables, the stochastic dynamics simulation method was constructed and applied to the research to the evolution law with running mileage of dynamic index of CR400BF EMU.

Despite entrepreneurial linguistic style gaining increased attention in entrepreneurship studies, the field for digital vlogger entrepreneurs still lacks a comprehensive understanding of how linguistic patterns enhance audiences attitude and behaviour. This study aims to propose a conceptual model of “language-mental imagery-attitude-behaviour model” that leads to the examination of rich sensory language style of food travel vlogger entrepreneurs and its persuasive effect on audiences' attitude and behavioural intention.

The present study utilises a stimulus-based survey method that involves a sensory-rich vlog script extracted from a high social media engagement authentic vlog. Data are collected through an online questionnaire distributed to a sample of 355 participants via the Amazon Turk mechanism. The study employs confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling to test the proposed hypotheses, with the aim of contributing to the advancement of theories of embodied cognition in entrepreneurial language by examining the attitudes and behaviours of audiences exposed to sensory-rich language. The findings of this research provide valuable insights into the effects of sensory-rich language on audience responses and can inform future research on the role of embodied cognition in entrepreneurial communication.

The findings demonstrate that vlogger entrepreneurial sensory-rich linguistic communication style positively influence audiences' attitude, behavioural involvement with food and intention to taste. Visit intention will be enhanced via the mediating effects of attitude, behavioural involvement with food and intention to taste.

This research highlights the significance of sensory-rich language for vlogger entrepreneurs in entrepreneurial communication, digital storytelling and for destination marketing enterprises in creating a digital sensory engagement marketing strategy.

The study contributes to the literature by elucidating the theories of embodied cognition in entrepreneurial communication. By examining the relationships between vlogger communication evoked mental imagery, audiences attitude and behaviours, this study provides novel insights into the effectiveness of sensory-rich language in vlogger entrepreneurial communication and its impact on audience engagement. These findings have important implications for communication scholars and practitioners alike, shedding light on the role of embodied cognition in entrepreneurial language and the potential of sensory-rich language to enhance audience engagement.