Homophily and peer influence in early-stage new venture informal investment
研究了早期新创企业的非正式投资者如何受同伴群体中共享经验和创业精神的影响，发现个人创业经验和同伴嵌入经验都会显著增加投资可能性，且社会效应可替代个人经验的不足。
Abstract Conceptualising early-stage new venture informal investors as co-entrepreneurs whose actions are socially embedded, we examine the role of social influence and how it interplays with entrepreneurial experience at the individual level leading to informal investment. We extend theories of social homophily and social influence to argue that informal investment decisions are influenced by shared experience and entrepreneurism in peer groups. We test our hypotheses with a multi-level model using first a large cross-country dataset and next in depth within a country. Our analysis reveals that both individual entrepreneurship experience and peer group-embedded experience significantly influence the likelihood that an individual becomes an early-stage investor. Furthermore, these social effects substitute for the lack of individual entrepreneurial experience.