IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jbrese/v186y2025ics0148296324004922.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Legitimating language and emotional tone in antenarratives: A cultural entrepreneurship perspective

Author

Listed:
  • Phillips, Duygu
  • Moore, Curt B.
  • Rutherford, Matthew W.

Abstract

The concept of storytelling has gained prominence within entrepreneurship, especially as the key property underpinning the process of cultural entrepreneurship. Although it is conventionally assumed that entrepreneurial communications take the form of fully formed stories (e.g., business pitches), by relaxing this assumption, we are able to advance cultural entrepreneurship and test its boundaries. We theorize that when new ventures choose specific legitimating language to share very short story fragments (i.e., antenarratives) online, the audience is compelled to engage. Furthermore, we suggest that the effect of legitimating language on stakeholder engagement will vary based on the emotional tone conveyed in these antenarratives. To test our theory, we construct dictionaries to measure three types of legitimating language (pragmatic, moral, cognitive) and empirically analyze a large, unique dataset of new ventures from X. Results offer support for our theorizing.

Suggested Citation

  • Phillips, Duygu & Moore, Curt B. & Rutherford, Matthew W., 2025. "Legitimating language and emotional tone in antenarratives: A cultural entrepreneurship perspective," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 186(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:186:y:2025:i:c:s0148296324004922
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2024.114988
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148296324004922
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jbusres.2024.114988?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:186:y:2025:i:c:s0148296324004922. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jbusres .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.