Authors: Daniel Bennet  (University of Louisville)

Abstract: Increasing political populism sets the stage for rapid institutional change (Rode &vRevuelta, 2015), creating institutional uncertainty that raises future anticipated transaction costsvand alters the incentives facing entrepreneurs (Bennett et al., 2022).Bennett et al. (2022), find that the emergence of populist political leaders, particularly those of the left-wing variety, reduce the propensity of individuals to enter entrepreneurship. While their seminal study highlights the potential negative influence of populism on the creation of new entrepreneurial ventures, it does not address how populism potentially influences the actions of incumbent entrepreneurs. This is an important consideration because, by creating institutional uncertainty, populism not only impacts the decision of individuals to enter entrepreneurship, it also  potentially influences the strategic decisions of entrepreneurs for their firms (Blake et al., 2022; Devinney & Hartwell, 2021). Consequently, we adress the following research question: How does populism influence the strategic allocation of entrepreneurial effort by firms?

Host: Siddharth Vedula