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This paper is a rejoinder to the work of Blohm, Antretter, and colleagues recently published in both Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice and Harvard Business Review titled “It's a Peoples Game, Isn't It?! A Comparison Between the Investment Returns of Business Angels and Machine Learning Algorithms” and “Do Algorithms Make Better – and Fairer – Investments than Angel Investors?”, respectively.

While we agree with authors of prior scholarship on the importance of counteracting human biases, honing expert intuition and optimizing the odds of success in investment decision-making contexts, in the spirit of open academic discourse, this paper respectfully challenges some of the underlying assumptions concerning algorithmic bias on which prior work is based.

Investing remains part art and part science, and while algorithms may begin to play a more significant role in investment decision-making, human intuition remains hard to imitate. In both people and in algorithms, sources of bias remain both implicit and explicit and often have systemic roots, so more research continues to be needed to fully understand why algorithms produce potentially biased outcomes across a wide array of contexts.

This paper contributes to our collective understanding on the use of algorithms in making investment decisions, highlighting the fact that bias exists in humans and algorithms alike, even when the best of intentions are present.

The overall aim of this research work was the improvement of the failure behavior of printed circuit boards (PCBs). In order to describe the mechanical behavior of PCBs under cyclic thermal loads, thin copper layers were characterized. The mechanical properties of these copper layers were determined in cyclic four-point bend tests and in cyclic tensile-compression tests, as their behavior under changing tensile and compression loads needed to be evaluated.

Specimens for the four-point bend tests were manufactured by bonding 18-μm-thick copper layers on both sides of 10-mm-thick silicone plates. The silicone was characterized in tensile, shear and blow-up tests to provide input data for a hyperelastic material model. Specimens for the cyclic tensile-compression tests were produced in a compression molding process. Four layers of glass fiber-reinforced epoxy resin (thickness 90 μm) and five layers of copper (thickness 60 μm) were applied.

The results showed that, due to the hyperelastic material behavior of silicone, the four-point bend tests were applicable only for small strains, while the cyclic tensile-compression tests could successfully be applied to characterize thin copper foils in tensile and compression up to 1 percent strain.

Thin copper layers (foils) could be characterized successfully under cyclic tensile and compression loads.

To communicate their sustainability and responsible management practices to the public, firms can leverage digital technologies both at the organisational and managerial levels. This study explores how firms' communications of responsible management contribute to sustainability in supply chains, as well as the role of blockchain in promoting responsible management.

Employing a qualitative methodology, the authors perform social media analytics (content analysis and sentiment analysis) on a dataset obtained from the social media posts of managers.

The study identifies eight key responsible management practices and shed new light on the role of blockchain in responsible management. The study results contribute to theory by linking responsible management practices with existing sustainability practices in the supply chain. The authors also demonstrate that blockchain enhances responsible management.

Reliance on publicly available data from social media, comprising corporate statements emanating from managers is a major limitation in this study.

The eight responsible management practices identified in this study are recommended for managers of different supply chain echelons to promote sustainable supply chain management (SSCM). The study findings also offer new rationale for blockchain adoption in supply chains.

To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to link the concepts of responsible management and SSCM. Moreover, the authors obtain empirical evidence from managers in the luxury fashion supply chain.

The study examines the IPO resilience grounded on the firm’s intrinsic factors.

We examine the association of IPO performance and post-listing firm’s performance with issuers' pre-listing financial and qualitative traits using panel data regression.

IPOs floated in the Indian market from July 2009 to March 31, 2022, evince the notable influence of issuers' pre-IPO fundamentals and legitimacy traits on IPO returns and post-listing earning power. Where the pandemic’s favorable impact is discerned on the post-listing year earning power of the issuer firms, the loss-making issuers appear to be adversely affected by the Covid disruption. Perhaps, the successful listing equipped the issuers with the financial flexibility to combat market challenges vis-à-vis failed issuers deprived of desired IPO proceeds.

High initial returns followed by a declining pattern substantiate the retail investors to be less informed vis-à-vis initial investors, valuers and underwriters, who exit post-listing after profit booking. Investing in the shares of the newly listed ventures post-listing in the secondary market can shield retail investors from the uncertainty losses of being uninformed. The IPO market needs stringent regulations ensuring the verification of the listing valuation, the firm’s credentials and the intent of utilizing IPO proceeds. Healthy development of the IPO market merits reconsidering the listing of ventures with weak fundamentals suspected to withstand the market challenges.

Given the tremendous rise in the new firm venturing into the primary market and the spike in IPOs countering the losses immediately post-opening, the study examines the loss-making and young firms IPOs separately, adding novelty to the study.

The authors probe the relationships between country institutional support for entrepreneurship and new venture survival. Specifically, the authors unpack the nuanced influences of entrepreneurs' perceived environmental uncertainty and their subsequent entrepreneurial behavioral profiles and how this particularly bolsters venture survival in contexts with underdeveloped institutions for entrepreneurship.

Coleman (1990) ‘bathtub’ framework is applied to develop a model and propositions surrounding how and when emerging market entrepreneur's perceptions of their countries institutional support toward entrepreneurship can ultimately enhance new venture survival.

Entrepreneurs' interpretations of regulatory, cognitive and normative institutional support for private enterprise helps them embrace uncertainties more accurately reflective of “on the ground” realities and stimulates constructive entrepreneurial behaviors. These are critical for increasing survival prospects in characteristically turbulent, emerging market contexts that typically lack reliable formal resources for cultivating nascent ventures.

This paper has implications for international policymakers seeking to stimulate and sustain entrepreneurial ventures in emerging markets. The authors shed light on the practical importance of understanding the social realities and interpretations of entrepreneurs in a given country relating to their actual perceptions of support for venturing—cautioning a tendency for outsiders to over-rely on aggregated econometric indices and various national ‘doing business' rankings.

This study is the first to create a conceptual framework on the mechanisms of how entrepreneurs in emerging economies affect new venture survival. Drawing on Coleman's bathtub (1990), the authors develop propositional arguments for a multilevel sequential framework that considers how developing economies' country institutional profiles (CIP) influence entrepreneurs' perceptions of environmental uncertainty. Subsequently, this cultivates associated entrepreneurial behavior profiles, which ultimately enhance (inhibit) venture survival rates. Further, the authors discuss the boundary conditions of this regarding how the national culture serves to moderate each of these key relationships in both positive and negative ways.

Entrepreneurship is the basis of economic development but is somehow limited by the lack of access to financing sources, especially in the crucial moments of start-up early-stage development. For crossing the so-called “valley of death,” start-ups need to access informal finance sources, such as business angels. This study aims at defining the profile of business angels and comparing it with the existing literature.

A novel methodology for sampling the business angles population has been used, which extracts data from online social media networks. This allows taking a closer look at informal sources of entrepreneurial finance. A total of 500 real business angels, acting worldwide, from the LinkedIn and Crunchbase databases has been retrieved for this study.

Results point out that younger investors seem to be entering the entrepreneurial informal finance market. They are mainly males between 40 and 50 years of age, with a previous entrepreneurial record, and more highly educated than previously stated. They tend to have studies from Business Administration and Economics, although they prefer to invest in the ICT sector.

Besides the novel data retrieval technique for analyzing the informal sources of finance, the originality of the work lies in updating the archetype for business angels.

The business angels market dramatically changed the modus operandi and nature of business angels’ activity, evolving from lone investors to angel groups managed professionally. This paper aims to analyze the impact of angel perceived career development on angel satisfaction and, consequently, on their intention to continue investing.

A model was tested through covariance-based structural equation modeling (SEM) using AMOS based on data collected from 336 business angels from seven European countries.

The results highlight that: the perception of personal development is a decisive factor in pursuing the career of business angel; personal development has a higher explanatory power in angel career development than fostering innovation; and the perception of career development has positive impacts on angels’ job satisfaction and reinvestment intention. The paper ends with implications and guidelines for angels, gatekeepers and entrepreneurs, which may increase satisfaction with the angel experience and contribute to enriching business angel work.

Cross-sectional self-reported data were used to analyze the results of this study.

To paper extends the body of knowledge of business angels’ perceived career development, with implications for business angels, which may increase satisfaction with angel experience and, therefore, contribute to enhancing business angels’ activity. Thus, this study provides a consistent reference for forthcoming studies regarding the career of business angels and their relationship with entrepreneurs.

This study aims to examine the impact of signaling through social media (SM) on funding achieved by start-ups.

This study follows a causal research design and is based on unique data set compiled from Crunchbase-Pro and Twitter. The sample size is 1,672 Indian start-ups. Heckman’s model and ordinary least squares regression is used to test the hypothesis.

Devising a thoughtful SM strategy, should be an integral part of the overall strategy of the start-ups looking out for funds. LinkedIn presence is in itself a positive signal. Active usage of Twitter and feedback from other Twitter users has a positive impact on funds raised by the start-up. Posting retweets and repetitive usage of URLs and media is not a predictor of funds raised by the start-up.

An early-stage strategy on SM adoption, especially Twitter can play an important role in attracting interest and attention of stakeholders. To capitalize SM, entrepreneurs should maintain an active SM account of the start-up.

India has emerged as one of the start-up hubs of the world. However, there is a dearth of literature on SM usage by start-ups in India. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is first of its kind and establishes the results empirically based on more than 100k tweets for a large pool of Indian start-ups.

In the context of rewards-based crowdfunding, this study aims to examine the role of project backers as providers of knowledge inputs beyond just financial capital.

This study uses binomial regression to study the relationship between project creators’ and backers’ knowledge sharing, and the relationship of these two knowledge-sharing elements with achieving above-goal funding levels.

This study finds that the project creator’s knowledge sharing is significantly and positively related to backers’ knowledge sharing and that this relationship is moderated by the type of project. Furthermore, backers’ knowledge sharing is positively related to above-goal funding outcomes for a project.

This study established the link between creators’ and backers’ knowledge sharing in rewards-based crowdfunding, which has been underexplored in the literature. This study’s direct attention to the role of knowledge as a key resource in rewards-based crowdfunding and crowdsourcing in general.

For entrepreneurs seeking crowdfunding, this study highlights the importance of knowledge sharing with their project backers to attain above-goal funding. Furthermore, eliciting backers’ knowledge input acts as a signaling mechanism that increases the crowd’s confidence in the project. It also endows entrepreneurs with knowledge resources that can improve project outcomes and achieve broader market success postcrowdfunding.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is one of the first to focus on knowledge content as a critical element in project backer-creator communication in rewards-based crowdfunding. This study also delineate the various knowledge types shared between the project creator and backers in both rewards-based crowdfunding projects.

The present study intends to foster understanding of how a traditional manufacturer can utilize the “simple rules” approach of managerial heuristics to facilitate its smart solution development (SSD) process.

The study uses an in-depth single case research strategy and 25 senior manager interviews to understand the application of simple rules in smart solution development.

The findings reveal process, boundary, preference, schedule, and stop rules as the dominant managerial heuristics in the case and identify how the manufacturer applies these rules during the innovation process phases of ideation, incubation, transformation, and industrialization for attaining project outcomes.

The study contributes to the new service development (NSD) literature by shedding light on simple rules and how managers may apply them to facilitate SSD. The main limitations stem from applying the qualitative case study approach and the interpretative nature of the study, which produces novel insights but prevents direct generalization to other empirical cases.

The resulting framework provides guidelines for managers on how to establish formal and clear simple rules that enable industrial solution providers to approach decision-making in smart solution development in a more agile manner.

The study comprises one of the first attempts to investigate managerial heuristics in the context of SSD and puts forward a plea for further NSD research applying psychological conceptualizations to enrich the simple rules perspective.