PhD Candidates
Get to know our PhD Candidates
In my Ph.D., I study on the organizing processes of money. Specifically, by studying the social, technological, and ideological components of money I want to reflect on how populations in conditions of vulnerability can design their financial commons. My research asks: How are financial innovations introduced and reproduced in informal urban settlements? I follow the stories of a group of researchers and a local community-based organization in Kenya where they designed and use their own Complementary Currency
I am part of Lund University Agenda2030 Graduate School, space where we share multidisciplinary approaches to sustainability. Always open to discuss exponential technologies and their impact on society´s wellbeing.
Equity Crowdfunding is a new and exciting financing method for start-ups and companies looking to grow. It involves the company to raise the necessary funds from “the crowd”: anyone can invest, regardless of their investment experience.
In recent years, the phenomenon has evolved, and companies have managed to raise billions from investors worldwide. The growing popularity has caused the birth of equity crowdfunding as a research topic in its own right and the necessity to tackle its eventual weaknesses and problems caused.
My project wants to focus on the crowd, I believe investors represent the weaker part of the process and my aim is to explore the determinants and consequences of their investment experience. Investors are those who make the existence of equity crowdfunding itself possible, they have to be protected or the financing method might disappear and so may its positive contribution to entrepreneurship.
I am part of a research group focusing on the so-called entrepreneurship industry (EI) - products, services, educations and other venture that aim to increase and improve entrepreneurial activities.
My research will primarily be focused on the 'provider side' of the industry, investigating motives for engaging in EI-activities, looking at both public and private actors. For example, research within my project might adress the of legitimacy in EI-activities carried by public actors answering questions like: What are the expectations of actors when funding or participating in projects? What arguments are put forward in order to accept such investments? And How do public and private actors compare in this sense?
Broadly, my research concerns the intersection of entrepreneurship and moral philosophy. A recent debate in entrepreneurship literature addresses the “bright and dark sides” of entrepreneurial phenomena, so that it contrasts how they can be either productive (value-adding) or destructive (value-depriving) – for the individual, the organization, or society at large.
Empirically, however, the ethicality of many entrepreneurial opportunities is more nuanced. By drawing heavily on ethical theories, my dissertation unpacks the grey zone in-between the bright and dark sides and explores entrepreneurial action that is productive and destructive – dependent on the perspective. Entrepreneurs who aim to “do things the right way” oftentimes face conflicting ethical interpretations in deciding what is “the right thing to do”. I study the cognitive processes underlying the entrepreneurs’ ethical assessments and investigate how these well-intended individuals come to take action when confronted with such ethical dilemmas.
The purpose of my PhD project is to assess the influence that the technological background of entrepreneurs has on their financing choice. I am interested in investigating if entrepreneurs with a scientific or engineering background tend to choose new forms of financing and to have easier access to them rather than the traditional equity and debt.
The start-up’s financial capital is highly important, since it allows the development of the firm when it needs the most: in the initial stage. However, entrepreneurs usually face some issues when seeking funding: start-ups face moral hazard problems due the lack of knowledge that investors have about the firm’s activities. Also, adverse selection problems arise, since start-ups’ managers and owners have private information that investors do not have access to. High-tech start-ups are even more constrained, since they usually do not have any tangible collateral to offer, and their activities are based on innovative technologies, which may be uncertain and difficult for investors to assess. Nevertheless, new instruments of financing have become available for start-ups, such as accelerators, crowdfunding, ICOs, amongst others.
Thus, this study intends to help both entrepreneurs and investors in the sense of better allocating financial resources to respective necessities.
In recent years, the number of angel associations have increased, presenting themselves as a feasible alternative to early-stage venture capital funds, and are diverse in their form and function. Angel associations are the answer to the shortcomings that individual business angels suffer from, overcoming these by achieving efficient deal flow, securing larger capital and obtaining visibility towards co-investors and investees.
In order for angel associations to fulfil these objectives, they need to reallocate capital efficiently, often through exits, which is a central theme in my research. I explore the link between different forms of angel associations, and their intentions to exit. I use syndication motivation literature to distinguish between angel associations’ motives i.e., financial motive, network motive and resource-based motive, and explore how each of these motives influence the type of exit intended i.e. planned exit, unplanned exit, strategic or opportunistic exits..