Presentation Abstracts

Immigrant Tech Entrepreneurs (Chair: Cathy Liu, Georgia State University)

Andrea Contigiani, Ohio State University

Leveraging Entrepreneurship to Empower Refugees in Central Ohio

The inclusion of forced migrants (i.e., refugees, asylum seekers, and other forcibly-displaced individuals) is a critical challenge in the United States and in other developed economies. The successful integration of this population largely depends on their economic self-sufficiency and adaptation to the social, financial, and legal context in the new environment. At the moment, most support efforts focus on job training and financial literacy programs. However, programs oriented towards entrepreneurship are rarely implemented. While often viewed as a viable route for vulnerable populations to achieve their potential, entrepreneurship remains understudied as a means for forced migrants to obtain social and economic well-being.

The purpose of this project is to examine the role of entrepreneurship training in the socioeconomic integration of forced migrants in the United States. We are conducting a field study based in Central Ohio – combining a survey, a series of focus groups, and a randomized controlled trial (RCT) – to understand the key institutional barriers that affect forced migrants’ entrepreneurial behavior and estimate the impact of entrepreneurship training on their entrepreneurial performance.

As of April 2022, we are in the process of analyzing the data from the initial survey and conducting the focus groups. We expect to have initial results in the Summer and then conduct our field experiment in the Fall.

Dongge Zhou, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

The Landscape of Entrepreneurship in Traditional and New Hispanic Destinations

Aiming at contextualizing the knowledge spillover process into the backdrop of immigrants’ spatial diffusion, this paper uses four datasets at the core-based statistical area level to test the association between the share of Hispanics in the population and firm quantity and innovation in the traditional and new destinations. Results from fixed-effects models indicate that an influx of Hispanics improves innovation in traditional destinations but decreases firm quantity in new destinations. These findings imply that native residents’ attitudes toward immigrants play a critical role in innovation rooted in knowledge spillover and the development of entrepreneurship.

William Zhou, University of Massachusetts Lowell

Migrant entrepreneurs, international R&D activities, and EDI (equity, diversity, and inclusion) policy

Drawn upon international entrepreneurship and technological innovation literature, this research aims to explore the relationship between migrant entrepreneurs, international R&D activities, and equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) policy. I argue that entrepreneurial firms found by migrant entrepreneurs enjoy network advantage cross borders, since migrant entrepreneurs can mobilize resources and transfer heterogenous knowledge between their home countries and the countries they reside. Thus, those new ventures are more likely to conduct R&D activities in a global scale. The innovative search depth and search scope of new ventures found by migrant entrepreneurs are therefore increased. I also hypothesize that new ventures found by migrant entrepreneurs are more likely to adopt EDI policy (e.g., a higher participation rate of minority groups) in R&D activities and the relationship between international R&D activities and innovation performance is moderated by diversity of founding management team and the use of digital disruptive technologies. The international R&D activities that those new ventures implement will have a positive influence on IPO premium.

Black Tech Entrepreneur Experience (Chair: Reginald Tucker, Louisiana State University)

Howard Jean-Denis, Pepperdine University

Race, technology, and entrepreneurship: A Haitian study

The field of entrepreneurship research is an exciting area, although the extant literature has been criticized for a lack of well-defined concepts and effective frameworks for empirical analysis (Casson, 2014). Additionally, entrepreneurship students struggle to understand economic concepts which would be helpful to them should they ever decide to start a business. These struggles are particularly pronounced in low income, marginalized communities or for students who reside in developing market countries where racial, social, and political factors play a role.

I seek to address these issues by building a framework to better understand the motivations and outcomes for aspiring technology-based entrepreneurs residing in Haiti. The resource-based view and effectuation theories are two leading theories which have been utilized to provide explanations for entrepreneurship behavior.

The research question in this study is the following: How do resources and processes influence the motivation of aspiring Haitian technology entrepreneurs? The existing management literature states that inherited resources and capabilities will motivate human beings to engage in entrepreneurship (Barney, 1991; Teece, 2007), yet little is known about how the processes that entrepreneurs in developing markets engage in effect their decision to launch their businesses and ultimate their firm's success or failure. This study will build theory and collect data to test our logic on student entrepreneurs in Port au Prince and Cap Haiten, Haiti.

Karis Wilson, The University of Oklahoma

Analyzing the Intersection of Black Entrepreneurship and Technologies: How Technological Developments Deter Entrance into the Creator Economy.

This research will be a qualitative, exploratory study to gain a better understanding of how entrepreneurs and content creators view paths to success and how changes to ways organizations communicate about technology benefits and affordances may enable a clearer path to success. Interviews and content analysis will be used to answer the research questions. Participants will include YouTubers who are between 18 - 75 years old, identify as Black, and have posted between 20 to 30 videos in the last year. I will use an iterative interpretive approach through the use of grounded theory. Broadly, some key research questions this study addresses includes, how do structural or psychological factors produce or reproduce inequality in technology entrepreneurship? An exemplar which is representative of this may include YouTube adjusting the YouTube “subscriber count” and “watch hours” benchmarks which grant one the right to monetize their content. The benchmark may be adjusted based on communal assessments, such as Black online YouTube entrepreneurs, or potentially on a tier-based structure. Such changes may prove helpful when considering ways tangible and financial resources may be inaccessible because of historical disadvantages which disproportionately impact Black community members. This research study may also help address how and when organizations should consider minoritized communities, particularly when developing new products or services. Additionally, ways entrepreneurs may consider racial equity concerns at scales large enough to create material change may also be addressed.

Jaquetta Graham, Morgan State University

Digitalization and Black Entrepreneurship: Understanding Challenges and Evaluating Solutions

When adopting digitalization, black entrepreneurs are faced with the challenges of a lack of digital literacy and limited access to digital technology (Williams et al., 2017). Training programs and support for digitalization can help black entrepreneurs by enhancing their digital literacy and maximizing their business potential through digital technology (Neumeyer et al, 2020). Using a sample of entrepreneurs from the Empower Baltimore program, provided in partnership with GoDaddy and Impact Hub, we assess participants’ current digital presence and ways in which that digital presence could be further developed. To understand participants’ baseline knowledge of and exposure to digital technologies aimed at increasing web presence, surveys and interviews were conducted prior to the beginning of the program. To evaluate the outcomes of the program, we conducted a focus group discussion and one-on-one interviews to gain a perspective on how participants’ perceptions of digital technology and its influence on their web presence may have changed as a result of their participation in the Empower Baltimore program. In doing so, we found that black entrepreneurs are challenged by a lack of knowledge and skills that would allow them to select and use digital tools and services to advance their business. As a result of the program, we found that the mere access to digital tools and services were not enough on their own, but that training and mentorship provided black entrepreneurs with even more crucial knowledge and skills to advance their digital presence.

Homophily, Homogeneity, and Exposure (Chair: TBD)

Rosanna Garcia, Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Entrepreneurial Intent is not Black or White: An Intersectional Perspective

Considerable research has explored various drivers of entrepreneurial intent (EI), including the effects of race or gender separately (e.g., Edelman, Brush, Manolova, & Greene, 2010). Our study builds on this previous work by considering the intersection between race and gender, a unique and needed broadening of perspective as race and gender do not exist in isolation from each other. Applying both role congruity and social identity theory, this study considers an individual’s EI through an intersectional lens. Using a sample of 562 student respondents from five universities across the U.S., an experiment examines entrepreneurial intent to participate in entrepreneurship programs after exposure to one of five website conditions intentionally varied in terms of racial and gendered language and imagery. Our findings reveal that intersectionality matters as students responded to the conditions significantly differently dependent upon the race-gender intersection. Overall, the highest positive influence in entrepreneurial intent across all students, regardless of race or gender, resulted from exposure to the racial-minority-female-centric website condition.

Angelino Viceisza, Spelman College

Can the media spur startup activity? Evidence from the television show “Shark Tank”

We study how media exposure to entrepreneurship affects startup activity by connecting Nielsen ratings for the ABC show Shark Tank to numerous measures of entrepreneurial interest or intent. To instrument for ratings we exploit the fact that live NBA games are broadcast on television at the same time as Shark Tank, introducing episode-level random variation in viewership across markets. Viewership increases measures of entrepreneurial interest, such as seeking advice from an SBA training center or filing for patents, but has little measurable impact on new business formation. The number of women attending advice-seeking sessions at SBA centers increases when greater fractions of women contestants appear on the show. Also, more people seek advice when a larger percentage of contestants are successful in receiving funding. Such effects do not seem to be present along racial lines; although there is suggestive evidence that Hispanic viewers are deterred from advice-seeking when greater fractions of Hispanic contestants appear on the show. The findings indicate that increased media exposure to entrepreneurship nudges individuals down the path of launching a business, even if stronger nudges are required to increase new business formation.

Mauricio Mercado, Iowa State University

Birds of a Feather Struggle Together? The Perils of Racial Homogeneity to Technology Entrepreneurial Team Performance

Several studies suggest minority business owners face higher barriers relative to their majority counterparts and this may be why they stagnate or fail. However, such arguments are limited in that they emphasize the macro and micro limitations of minority entrepreneurs, ignoring the meso-level elements affecting minority businesses. The tendency of entrepreneurial ventures to operate in teams, be distinctively endogenous compared to organizational teams, along with the importance of team composition to its performance, suggests that the plight of minority entrepreneurs can be explained by the interaction of minority status with the different team formation and functioning stages an entrepreneurial team goes through. In this conceptual paper, we study the minority team composition-emergence-performance relationship, leveraging the homophily perspective and entrepreneurial team cognition literature. Using these frameworks, we argue that racial homogeneity can have both positive and negative effects on technology startup performance, and the direction of such effect is contingent on the team development stage. In making these propositions, we contribute to the minority entrepreneurship literature, entrepreneurial teams research, and team learning processes space.

Barriers to Entry and Keys to Success (Chair: TBD)

Ouaffa Hmaddi, University of Oregon

Certifying Need: Can expanding certification access help ventures in impoverished communities?

Prevailing theory assumes certifications signal quality. However, ventures that most require certifications are frequently constrained from generating such signals. Thus, extremely few can ever access certifications. Critically, this marginalizes ventures from impoverished communities. Alternatively, we surmise that certifications can improve venture performance in such communities through signaling need rather than quality. In so doing, we consider the implications of certifying the geographic place where a firm is located. We argue that place-based (as opposed to firm-based) certification is useful in detaching certification from a particular venture and, when signaling need, jolts audience members to widen their social gaze and include otherwise marginalized ventures. Our empirical context is the U.S. Historically Underutilized Business Zone program. This place-based certification flags need in specific places. Analyzing a nationwide sample of 77,241 U.S. ventures founded between 2014 to 2017, we find evidence that place-based certifications indeed improve firm performance and help audience members avoid conflating their own contextual unfamiliarity with venture quality. We offer guidance for rethinking and advancing organizational theory to direct attention towards marginalized contexts. We make theoretical contributions that unshackle certification from its dependency on quality in hopes of broadening access to those who can acquire and benefit from certifications.

Seonghoon Kim, University of California, Santa Barbara

Into a Vicious Cycle: A Negative Spillover Effect of an Entrepreneurial Failure on an Assessment of Minority Entrepreneurs' Managerial Competence

In this research, we argue that when people see a business failure of a certain female or minority entrepreneur, they negatively assess managerial competence of all other female or racial-minority entrepreneurs of the same field. At the core of our argument is the role of group stereotypes. In the entrepreneurial domain, differential assessments have existed about female vs. male (or Black vs. white) entrepreneurs, such that people assess female or racial-minority entrepreneurs as less competent than male or racial-majority entrepreneurs in managing their business. Under this circumstance, a female or racial-minority entrepreneur’s business failure can trigger people’s recognition of other female or racial-minority entrepreneurs’ group stereotype, leading to the reinforcement of an already-negative stereotype. Once negatively updating a group stereotype, people further negatively evaluate female or racial-minority entrepreneurs’ multiple, competence-relevant unobservable qualities, such as leadership, R&D knowledge and/or adaptability. Since these attributes are closely related to entrepreneurs’ financial rewards, minority entrepreneurs’ market performance can be significantly reduced on the capital market. In this paper, we derive relevant hypotheses and test them through an experimental vignette study approach.

Yi Zhang, Oklahoma State University

The Role of Stakeholders in Healing the Liability of Minorities for Racially Minoritized Entrepreneurial Teams

Entrepreneurs mostly start a business in the form of a team with friends or someone they trust. As the saying goes, well begun is half done. Great team members may be half success. However,

racially minoritized entrepreneurs often face the liability of minorities, which means that racially minoritized entrepreneurs often fail or experience problems because of their race. Thus, it is more difficult to find appropriate team members to form an entrepreneurial team that has the potential to succeed.

Researchers are interested in how this team will operate throughout the entrepreneurial journey. Should they gather together with a similar racial background? Or should they intentionally choose team members with a diverse racial background to complement? Will their similar or diverse racial

backgrounds help or impede the business creation? Will the minoritized entrepreneurs face any unfavorable situations when dealing with stakeholders such as customers, suppliers, or authorities? If so, how do they manage to function under that constraint? Or will they face exceptional support

from stakeholders? If so, how does stakeholders’ support facilitate the business creation? These questions are so intriguing that we want to understand how minoritized entrepreneurial teams thrive in the new venture creation. Specifically, this paper seeks to understand: 1) how do racially

minoritized entrepreneurial teams build up and function, 2) what is the role of stakeholders in influencing the minoritized entrepreneurial team’s success. First, I test whether minoritized entrepreneurial team members gather from similar or diverse

races and ethnicity. Next, I investigate the role of stakeholders in determining whether the individuals with racially minoritized backgrounds tend to start an entrepreneurial adventure or stay

in their comfort zone as an employee. I then test whether the minoritized entrepreneurial team would function better with stakeholders’ support or criticism. Taken together, I aim to investigate how do minoritized entrepreneurs deal with stakeholders involved in new venture creation (e.g.,

suppliers, customers, governments, etc.).

Theory Development (Chair: Alex Lewis, University of Texas at San Antonio)

Ihsan Beezer, Rutgers University

Pipelines and Prisms: Exploring self-assessments and constraints in technology entrepreneurship

How does self-evaluation influence the decision to found a technology startup versus join? What effect does the resource acquisition process have on a nascent entrepreneur’s self-evaluation? Continuing to unpack how and why Black technologists decide to either found a startup versus join a startup as an employee has a wide range of important implications. The findings may inform theory and provide further understanding of equity in technology entrepreneurship and innovation, program design, policy, entrepreneurial agency, structural factors, and skilled worker labor markets.

Rowena Crabbe, University of Texas at Austin

Black Entrepreneurship: A Review and Research Agenda

Black entrepreneurship plays an increasingly important role in contemporary society as a source of economic activity and a pathway for individual advancement and racial progress. However, Black entrepreneurs continue to face distinct challenges and impediments. Research across a variety of disciplines has examined the social and economic facets of Black entrepreneurship. However, this literature remains highly fragmented. Further, it makes little use of relevant theories and tools from the fields of management and entrepreneurship. This review addresses these concerns by implementing a process framework that structures and integrates the existing multi-disciplinary literature within an entrepreneurship lifecycle process framework. We adapt the entrepreneurial lifecycle to incorporate the contexts and impediments which Black entrepreneurs navigate and provide a robust future research agenda.

STEM Education and Human Capital (Chair: Constance Barnes, University of Pittsburgh)

Rachel Atkins, New York University

Measuring Racial and Ethnic Representation in 21st Century High Tech Self-employment

Scholarly literature and popular media outlets document the lack of racial and ethnic diversity and inclusion among technology sector employees, however; racial and ethnic disparities in technology entrepreneurship are not well documented or understood. The factors that contribute to a more racially and ethnically homogenous tech workforce may produce similar outcomes in TE. Conversely, unfavorable tech labor market conditions for underrepresented and minoritized groups could push them to pursue entrepreneurship or self-employment as an alternative. This study is the first to comprehensively estimate racial and ethnic representation within the universe of technology entrepreneurs in the US during the first two decades of the 21st century. Our results show that Black, Hispanic, and Asian workers are less likely to be self-employed in tech industries than their White counterparts. Disparities persist over time even when controlling for selection into tech industries, STEM education, and other observable characteristics.

Jocelyn Jackson, University of Michigan

TBD

The increased interest and creation of STEM entrepreneurship

programming provides researchers an opportunity to examine how racial equity can be advanced in STEM entrepreneurship programs. To work toward advancing racial equity, it is critical to understand racially minoritized experiences in entrepreneurship training programs. Jocelyn will provide an overview of her recent study that sought to understand the experiences of racially

minoritized participants in I-Corps, a STEM entrepreneurship training program. Jocelyn and her collaborators used qualitative research methods to understand how racially minoritized academic researchers experience STEM entrepreneurship programming. They found that structural barriers, climate, prior experience in entrepreneurship, and entrepreneurial identity and mindset greatly impact participant experience, both negatively and positively. Participants also provided recommendations for improving STEM entrepreneurship programming. Additionally, Jocelyn will share insight on how unequal domains of power (structural, disciplinary, cultural, and interpersonal) can disempower racially minoritized populations in entrepreneurship

programming. Her work seeks to support the design of STEM entrepreneurship programs that encourage equity for all.

Thema Monroe-White, Berry College

TBD

In June 2020, a global strike (#strike4BlackLives) by academics, scientists, and publishers shed light on the issues of racism, lack of representation, and other inequities in universities and scientific communities in response to the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. Despite recent attention on the positive effects of the BLM movement in university settings, our understanding of how this movement may be creating divergent career opportunities for underrepresented STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering/ Computer Science, and Mathematics) doctoral students is limited. Indeed, the BLM movement has offered new career prospects, where standing against racial injustice has become an integral part of minoritized doctoral students' personal and STEM identities. Most research attention in the STEM domain has gone toward combatting COVID-19; relatively little attention has been paid to growing activism within and beyond STEM communities. Dr. Monroe-White will highlight her study that examines STEM doctoral students’ career trajectories, particularly toward entrepreneurship, and the interplay of racial activism impacting their career decisionmaking. The study presents the results of 367 STEM doctoral students, 337 of whom are underrepresented in STEM fields and racially minoritized. Results reveal that racial justice activism and minority status stress predict the likelihood of pursuing entrepreneurship among racially minoritized STEM doctoral students. Specifically, the intent to start a business is driven by both racial justice activism and chronically high levels of race-based stress stemming from prejudice and discrimination experienced by minoritized groups based on the standardized beta 15130 9 coefficients, after controlling for the other variables in our regression models. Accordingly, she’ll highlight how their research suggests STEM entrepreneurship as a form of actionable opposition to racial injustice.

Impact of Technology (Chair: Tawanna Dillahunt, TBD)

Matthew Bui, University of Michigan

A Recipe for Success?: Exploring How Restauranteurs of Color Navigate Yelp Data and Construct Data-Driven Metrics

This study examines issues of algorithmic bias within Yelp, a digital entrepreneurial platform often critiqued for its technocratic default settings of whiteness. Focusing on the Midwestern cities of Chicago, Detroit, and St. Louis, we first audit and map the general state of these digital markets, in an attempt to estimate the proportion of women- and minority-owned enterprises represented within the platform. Following this data collection and mapping process, we use interviews with restaurant owners to explore whether and how their local environments afford barriers to entry as well as entrepreneurs’ digital marketing strategies. In all, this study explores the challenges and experiences of minority- and women-owned business owners in promoting their businesses within digital platforms while also foregrounding their best practices. The interviews probe at restauranteurs' use and reconstruction of data-driven metrics and imagined target audiences, while also highlighting and investigating related issues of platform trust, visibility, and governance. These findings have important implications for effecting inclusive design and policy interventions in the future.

Linna Zhu, Urban Institute

Revisiting Automated Valuation Model Disparities in Majority-Black Neighborhoods: New Evidence Using Property Condition and Artificial Intelligence

Automated valuation models (AVMs) represent the promise of greater efficiency and hence lower costs for the mortgage industry. However, our previous study suggested that AVMs can also produce racially disparate outcomes, namely a higher error as a percent of sale price in majority-Black neighborhoods, that highlight the importance of technological equity. Potential inequities produced by AVMs may reflect data omission. But it may also result from racial disparities in model inputs or from the modeling technique used. In this report, we build on our previous study by testing each of these possibilities.

Our results suggest that additional data on the property condition can help to attenuate the percent magnitude of AVM error. And there is potential that adopting Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools could further help reduce the percent magnitude of AVM error. Disparate outcomes in AVM error would also decline, but not disappear, if racialized inequities in model inputs were removed. The promising impact of AI models in reducing the percent magnitude of AVM error suggests that exploring other classes of AI models could have better outcomes.

However, our results do not allow us to reject the role that systemic discrimination has played in the evaluation of home values. The role of systemic racism has persistently penetrated through home values, property conditions, and neighborhood conditions. And inequities in each of these dimensions can result in lower home values, less adequate housing, and smaller household incomes across majority-Black neighborhoods. By including variables that demonstrate clear racial disparities into the model, the AVM algorithm is more likely to produce relatively greater disparate outcomes in the form of percent magnitude of AVM error.

Jung H. Kwon, University of Denver

Digitization and Startup Innovation

Inventions require recombination of prior art, but accessing and identifying prior art incur significant search costs. We explore how a sudden reduction in search costs—the 2006 launch of Google Patents digitizing inventive records—as a natural experiment. Using a difference-in-differences approach, we examine the innovations of U.S.-based startups in the life sciences industry. We find that digitized records of inventions increase the startups’ invention productivity proportionally to the geographic distance from a USPTO archive. Moreover, digitization both stimulates invention cross-fertilization and expands invention breadth more substantially for startups located at a distance from the archives. Further, the pace and scope of innovation diffusion increase when inventions receive early attention within the industry. Our study sheds new light on how digitization reshapes entrepreneurial innovation.

Tech Entrepreneurs on the African Continent (Chair: TBD)

Leo Mutuku, Quotidian Data

THE AFRICAN TECHPRENEUR: geopolitics of investments in “local” Kenyan entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurs in Kenya are heterogenous, with diverse backgrounds, career goals, and personal histories. However, during five years of working long hours at the iHub, Nairobi’s co-working space for technology entrepreneurs, we observed the emergence of the trope of the “Kenyan Techpreneur” that came to be latched onto by the state, development aid, and philanthropic sectors and gain its own circulatory power. Through an analysis of the figure of the Kenyan “Techpreneur” and its production in Nairobi, this paper reveals how imperial logics and structures continue to underpin apparently independent initiative, pointing to the limits of thinking in simple binary terms and to a need for inventive, cosmopolitan constructs of Kenyan entrepreneurism. In recent years, Kenyans figured as Techpreneurs have contested the narrow construction of its parameters, which ironically appear to disproportionately benefit non-Africans working in the Kenyan tech sector. Describing some of the quotidian ways that transnational geopolitics and capital continue to heavily shape what happens within the bounds of the nation-state and the “local” Kenyan tech scene, we seek to emphasize how the local is in fact heavily tied up with enduring imperial formations of neoliberal development. This is an important prompt for a global STS to bring new, more complex subjects into relief.

Tessa Pijnaker, University of Birmingham

Being ‘independent’, becoming ‘credible’: racial self-making, extraversion and middle-class aspirations among technology entrepreneurs in Accra, Ghana.

While technology entrepreneurship is widely celebrated by global media outlets, NGOs and financial institutions as the new way to develop Africa, 74% of Ghanaian start-ups fails in the first two to three years (GreenTec Capital Africa Foundation and WeeTracker, 2020). Based on twelve months of ethnographic fieldwork in Ghana’s capital Accra in 2014-2015 and 2018-2019, this paper argues that Ghanaian technology entrepreneurs, in response to their insecure and marginal position within the global economy, produce two new varieties of older forms of racialized self-making to achieve their middle-class aspirations. One group is convinced that start-up failure is caused by Ghanaians' deeply rooted inferiority complex, resulting in racial benefits for white and African diaspora entrepreneurs. This group has developed a new form of extraversion (Bayart and Ellis,2000): they aim to gain ‘credibility’ through displays of their ability to traverse an imaginary ‘gate’ between Africa and the rest of the world. A second group, denouncing racial stereotypes about Africa, aims to be ‘independent’ and defies foreign ideas about what an African tech start-up should be. These two groups illustrate that while Africanist anthropology and African diaspora studies rarely discuss race in present-day West Africa (Pierre, 2012, p.2), racial self-making is an important part of acquiring upward social mobility for Ghanaian technology entrepreneurs.

Christian Busch, New York University

Asserting and Transcending Ethnic Homophily: How Entrepreneurs Develop Social Ties To Access Resources and Opportunities in Socially Contested Environments

Social ties are important sources of resources and opportunities for entrepreneurs. However, in socially contested settings, it is often more difficult to connect with (diverse) others, and it is unclear how entrepreneurs in these contexts may develop the social ties that previous research has shown to be valuable. We studied this subject matter in Kenya, an ethnically fractionalized society that recently experienced the decentralization of government. This contextual change required entrepreneurs who were previously providing IT services to the central government to deal with both in-group and out-group ethnicities on the local county level. Our inductive case study of four ICT firms

captures how and why entrepreneurs in socially contested settings select and manage social ties in order to access opportunities.

Public Policy & Programs (Chair: Qingfang Wang)

April Burrage, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Innovation Policy and Inequality: How Do State R&D Tax Incentives Affect Opportunity for Women- and Minority-Owned Businesses?

In the US, the need to address complex societal problems, including national defense, post-industrial transition, environmental problems, and public health, has, at times, spurred public support for industry-specific, early-stage innovation investments. While the Federal role in innovation policy is longstanding, state governments have recently increased their support for innovation to improve economic growth and to attract high-growth businesses to the state. The federal Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program is a competitive grant program that provides financial support for technological innovation with potential for commercialization by startups and small businesses, and many states now offer R&D tax incentives. Inequality and civil rights have not yet been among the complex society problems that innovation policy has addressed. Indeed, if firm subsidies are not carefully designed, policies that increase overall growth can even reinforce inequality of income, wealth, and well being by gender and race. Using data on SBIR grants and state innovation subsidies, I explore how federal and state policies separately and jointly affect the participation of women- and minority-owned businesses in innovation and entrepreneurship. I hypothesize that supply side incentives have so far done little for the participation of underrepresented people in innovation and entrepreneurship. My empirical approach will estimate the causal effects of state-level R&D tax incentives, particularly their impact on federal innovation funding of women- and minority-owned businesses. More careful policy design is needed to encourage inclusive participation.

Jeffrey Robinson, Rutgers University

TBD

Dr. Robinson will present highlights from his work with the National Science Foundation (NSF). A decade ago, the NSF launched the Innovation Corps (I-Corps) program. This program’s primary goals are to encourage and equip researchers from the natural, biological, and social sciences to explore commercial potential of their work. I-Corps is one of a number of complementary initiatives that illustrate NSF’s commitment to advancing societal good through technology commercialization. Despite I-Corps growth and commendable goals, it has yet to provide acceptable results for NSF’s inclusive innovation objectives. Dr. Robinson will discuss the overarching ecosystem, interventions and the critical details of I-Corps as related to diversity, inclusive innovation, and training programs.

Sabrina Howell, New York University

Automation and Racial Disparities in Small Business Lending: Evidence from the Paycheck Protection Program

By enabling smaller loans, broader geographic reach, and less human bias in decision-making, process automation may reduce racial disparities in access to financial services. We find evidence for all three channels using a setting where private lenders faced no credit risk but decided who to serve: the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), which provided loans to small businesses during COVID-19. Black-owned firms disproportionately obtained their PPP loans from fintech lenders, especially in areas with high racial animus. After traditional banks automate their loan application processes, their PPP lending to Black-owned businesses increases. Our findings cannot be fully explained by racial differences in loan application behaviors, pre-existing banking relationships, contemporaneous firm performance, or fraud rates.

Entrepreneurial Finance in Tech Finance (Chair: Sabrina Howell)

Robert Fairlie, University of California, Santa Cruz

Racial Inequality in Capital Access for Innovative Startups

Racial inequality in access to financing contributes to broader inequality in business success, growth and job creation. Previous research finds large disparities between white and Black startups in the use of financial capital in the first year and follow-up years (Fairlie, Robb and Robinson 2022). An important unanswered question, however, is whether racial inequality in financing exists even among high-growth potential businesses and among high-skilled owners. Or, are the racial disparities found in financing simply due to these differences (i.e. Black businesses are in less growth oriented industries)? To explore this question we conduct an analysis using KFS microdata limiting the focus to only the types of startups that are potentially high-growth and job creators. Shifting the focus to the owner, we also conduct a separate analysis for high-skilled owners using owner information in the KFS. Conditioning on these types of businesses and owners, we explore whether there continue to be large racial disparities in the financing of startups, or whether disparities become negligible or even disappear altogether. Using CPS microdata, we also explore the broader question of whether there is racial inequality in ownership of businesses in high-growth potential industries and among the high-skilled labor force. Using data over the past 25 years, we also examine whether there has been any convergence over time. The combined findings from the analysis of racial disparities in the ownership of innovative firms and the financing of innovative firms has important implications for policy and our understanding of the underlying causes of inequality in the United States.

Banu Ozkazanc-Pan, Brown University

Inclusive Innovation: An Intersectional Framework

Women and minorities remain underrepresented as venture-backed founders and as venture capitalists despite the available labor pool made up of women and minorities with relevant education and industry experience. Currently, nearly all venture-backed technology startup founders are White or Asian, and 83% are male. At the same time, 97% of VCs are white or Asian. Research indicates that female VCs back female tech founders 63% more often than male VCs do and overall, female VCs are twice as likely to invest in female founders. And while the likelihood of receiving venture capital funding is less than one percent, the industry has an outsized impact on the innovation economy and technological change.This paper proposes to highlight the interrelated and intersecting ways individual, organizational and industry level norms and practices lead to the underrepresentation of women and minorities as venture-backed STEM founders and as key decision-makers/investment partners in the venture capital industry. Using an intersectional framework allows for understanding the complexity and nuances required to change individual level behaviors, venture capital firm practices and industry-wide institutionalized norms related to networking, governance and capital allocation that distinctly and collectively lead to bias in venture capital investments. Understanding the intersectional drivers of bias in venture capital investments and providing ways to mitigate them is key to funding more women and minority STEM entrepreneurs and creating an inclusive innovation economy.

Julie Hui, University of Michigan

Community Tech Workers as a Model for Meeting the Digital Needs of Local Small Businesses

To create a more racially and ethnically inclusive technology entrepreneurship ecosystem for minority-owned businesses, we must embed culturally-accessible sociotechnical support within communities. We build on our early research which shows that minority-owned businesses have been disproportionately harmed during the pandemic because of an unavailability of digital skill training to business owners in a culturally competent way and subsequent challenges with technological integration. Our work aims to address this challenge and understand ways for social entrepreneurship to address racial equity concerns by taking a community-based participatory research (CBPR) approach to expand Detroit’s digital support infrastructure for small businesses. We will recruit, train, and place dedicated tech workers within Detroit’s Eastside to assess the technology needs of local businesses, the majority of which are Black-owned, and then provide free 1:1 support. Our results will advance the literature in disciplines such as human-computer interaction and digital literacy in entrepreneurship. We will investigate whether training content available via online learning platforms, like LinkedIn Learning, helps to uncover knowledge gaps and whether non-technical experts could be trained to provide this type of support within their communities. We will also contribute our training material to local businesses and our community partners. Intellectually, our program evaluation results will identify socio-technical gaps, or those gaps that technology alone cannot support, and where social interventions are required.

Tech Entrepreneurship Ecosystems (Chair: Tim Weiss)

Jose Cerecedo Lopez, The University of Texas at San Antonio

Looking Up To: Entrepreneurial Role Models as Enablers of URM Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship is a means through which individuals exert agency within market institutions to survive and grow in market societies, a process through which entrepreneurs reflexively engage with their environment to generate new structures. Race is a socially constructed set of categories that varies over time, but typically it flows from a narrow range of factors such as ancestral background and social identity. Race is a particular salient feature in the United States due to its tremendous racial heterogeneity due to the waves of multiethnic immigration. It is the agentic quality of entrepreneurship that makes it so compelling a process to study in the context of race.

Previous studies that research the interaction of race and entrepreneurship have identified entrepreneurial role models as a critical element to influence and encourage entrepreneurship for underrepresented minorities, but a clear understanding of this process is still lacking in the literature. This paper aims to take a closer look at the role entrepreneurial role models play as enablers and inspiration for URMs in the context of the United States of America through the analysis of a series of surveys and interviews made to a group of entrepreneurs participating in a national level technology entrepreneurship competition.

Anthonia Carter, Cornell University

Tension areas in venture capital hampering innovation in communities of color

Mainstream innovation primarily captures the viewpoints of White males in the global north. Consequently, the perspectives of historically marginalized and disadvantaged communities are largely absent from dominant views of innovation. Since venture capital is a notable source of funding for technology-enabled startup companies, it is critical to study how the social and organizational processes of venture capital (VC) investors shape the kinds of innovation that eventually become widespread. This work qualitatively examines the cultural, social, and behavioral norms and operations within the VC ecosystem shaping the types of innovation receiving funding. This paper maps out the VC landscape extracting themes and areas of tension concerning sources of disparities in VC. These insights are crucial for informing future mechanism designs for equitable capital allocation in driving more funding toward communities of color.

Shane Snipes, BMCC/CUNY

Local perceptional of technology ecosystems and their impacts on opportunity

Neighborhood disenfranchisement can be driven by a lack of knowledge about local ecosystems. In the context of technology entrepreneurship understanding and expansion, how have local perceptions about business been the root cause of less engagement with technology-centered entrepreneurship. In what ways are youth and aspiring businesspeople in technology being asked to forget and move on from their neighborhoods to find success in tech-centered careers?

Previous research discusses the uneven geography of opportunity. The challenges of changing this disproportionate allocation of resources are mostly ignored by policymakers and ignored in public discourse (Briggs, 2005). This discussion about urban areas and technology business development is an area of debate (Tate, 2008), but rural technology ecosystems are less of a focus (Leong et al., 2016). Black and brown people in specific neighborhoods need to be better understood before program offerings can address perceptions and realities of tech business opportunities.

Citizen Entrepreneur Explorers Program is a structured research process for any student or community member who wants to discover more about entrepreneurship. The CEEP program will be focused on the questions about neighborhoods’ perceptions about technology businesses. The program will engage students in the develop of research questions around technology ecosystems and community perceptions. The action research will reengagement the neighborhood participants in a discussion after data and information is collected through the CEEP program. These dialogues can be starting points for new initiatives and deeper understanding across the communities.

The research will offer an understanding of root causes for the perceptions about technology businesses at the neighborhood level in financially distressed neighborhoods and rural impoverished areas. The participants will include students, business owners, community leaders, and residents.