Biodiversity Entrepreneurship
We study an emerging class of start-up organizations focused on biodiversity conservation and the challenges they face in financing these ventures. Using a novel machine learning method, we identify 630 biodiversity-linked start-ups in PitchBook and compare their financing dynamics to other ventures. Biodiversity start-ups raise less capital but attract a broader coalition of investors, including not only venture capitalists (“value investors”) but also mission-aligned impact funds and public institutions (“values investors”).
AI for Customer Journeys: A Transformer Approach
AI for Customer Journeys: A Transformer Approach
Zipei Lu and P. K. Kannan, Smith School of Business, University of Maryland
(forthcoming Journal of Marketing Research)
The Influential Solo Consumer: When Engaging in Activities Alone (vs. Accompanied) Increases the Impact of Recommendations
Information about the social context of consumption is often seen on review websites or social media when consumers sharing word-of-mouth about an experience indicate whether they engaged in the activity solo or with companions. Across a secondary dataset scraped from Tripadvisor.com, five main experiments, and one supplemental experiment, the current research finds that individuals who engage in consumption activities alone can be a more influential source of recommendations than people who engage in these same activities with others.