Investors Prefer Entrepreneurial Ventures Pitched by Attractive Men

Alison Wood  Brooks; Laura  Huang; Sarah  Kearney; Fiona  Murray

Article | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences | 2014

Investors Prefer Entrepreneurial Ventures Pitched by Attractive Men

by Alison Wood Brooks, Laura Huang, Sarah Kearney and Fiona Murray

Abstract

Entrepreneurship is a central path to job creation, economic growth, and prosperity. In the earliest stages of start-up business creation, the matching of entrepreneurial ventures to investors is critically important. The entrepreneur's business proposition and previous experience are regarded as the main criteria for investment decisions. Our research, however, documents other critical criteria that investors use to make these decisions: the gender and physical attractiveness of the entrepreneurs themselves. Across a field setting (three entrepreneurial pitch competitions in the United States) and two experiments, we identify a profound and consistent gender gap in entrepreneur persuasiveness. Investors prefer pitches presented by male entrepreneurs compared with pitches made by female entrepreneurs, even when the content of the pitch is the same. This effect is moderated by male physical attractiveness: attractive males were particularly persuasive, whereas physical attractiveness did not matter among female entrepreneurs.

Keywords: Prejudice and Bias; Entrepreneurship; Investment; Gender;

Format: Print

Find at Harvard Read Now

Citation:

Brooks, Alison Wood, Laura Huang, Sarah Kearney, and Fiona Murray. "Investors Prefer Entrepreneurial Ventures Pitched by Attractive Men." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 111, no. 12 (March 25, 2014): 4427–4431.

Founded in 2010, CredEx has been a fast and constant innovator in the microfinance industry in China. Tang Xia, CEO and co-founder of CredEx, has led the company through a number of profound business model innovations in response to external environment changes, which transformed the company from an offline, operation heavy micro lending company to an online, data driven FinTech company. This case describes CredEx’s business model transformation process since its founding and explores the drivers and challenges in different stages of business model innovation and transformation. Ultimately, the case highlights the key capabilities needed to digitize a traditional finance business as well as the organizational changes needed to enable the digitization.

Humor is widely considered essential in personal relationships, but in leaders, it’s seen as an ancillary behavior. Though some leaders use humor instinctively, many more could wield it purposefully. Humor helps build interpersonal trust and high-quality work relationships and influences behaviors and attitudes that matter to leadership effectiveness, including employee performance, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and creativity.
These benefits don’t come without potential costs. The guidelines in this article suggest ways to capture the benefits of humor while avoiding the downside risks.

Career Karma is a startup focused on helping individuals looking to transition careers into computer engineering roles or similar fields by preparing them for formal technical training programs, or “coding bootcamps,” that would lead to a successful career pivot upon graduating from the program. The platform also encouraged users to engage with each other in “squad” support groups and paired users with mentors (other users who successfully transitioned careers through Career Karma). This case explores the journey of Career Karma’s three founders and navigating growth through an unexpected recession caused by a global pandemic.

Faculty & Research

Investors Prefer Entrepreneurial Ventures Pitched by Attractive Men

Abstract

Citation:

About the Authors

More from these Authors