Join us for a presentation by Professor Wesley David Sine, faculty director of the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Institute, and professor of management and organizations at Cornell University’s SC Johnson Graduate School of Management.
Friday, October 29th
9:15am - 10:45am
School of Business
BUSN 321
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Sponsored by CCEI and School of Business Management Department
BAD BLOOD: THE IMPACTOF VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN ON FIRM GROWTH AND THE MITIGATING EFFECT OF FAMILY AND RELIGIOUS SIGNALS
Abstract
Although violence is a common contextual attribute for some entrepreneurs operating in some developing market economies, research on the strategies that ventures can employ to grow their venture in such uncertain environments has received little attention. We propose that firm names, by embodying linguistically a signal of the identity of the firm, play a significant role in shaping the appeal of firms to consumers during uncertain times. We test our hypotheses in the context of Mexico from 2001-2006 which corresponds with increasing rates of homicides of women, largely brought on by warring Drug Trafficking Organizations. We chose to analyze homicides of women because in Mexican society women are perceived as innocent bystanders while the death of a man is often assumed to be due to his involvement in drug trafficking. We propose that the killing of the innocent in society has a larger impact on generalized trust and thus firm performance We find significant reductions in revenue for firms located in communities experiencing the sudden rise in femicide, but firms located in communities affected by femicide performed better when they used a family or religious signal in their firm name. We discuss both the theoretical and public policy implications of our results.
For more information, contact: Pamela Costa at pamela.costa@uconn.edu