About the Authors

Bernardo Balboni is Research Fellow at the University of Trieste. His research interests include business marketing, international business, and entrepreneurship. On this topics, he has published several articles in academic journals (Industrial Marketing Management, International Journal of Globalization and Small Business, Marketing Intelligence and Planning, The Service Industries Journal), he has written some book chapters, and he presented several papers in different international conferences (AIB, EIBA, EMAC, and RENT).

Paul Belleflamme is Professor of Economics at the Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium. He regularly publishes articles in leading economics journals on various topics related to industrial organization, with a special focus on innovation in the digital economy (which is also the main topic of his blog, www.IPdigIT.eu). He is the author, with Martin Peitz, of Industrial Organization: Markets and Strategies (Cambridge University Press, 2010; 2nd edition, 2015).

Adam J. Bock is Associate Professor of Management at Edgewood College Business School in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. He studies entrepreneurial activity in uncertain contexts to explain why entrepreneurs commercialize new technologies and how they develop innovative business models. Adam is the coauthor of Models of Opportunity (Cambridge) and Inventing Entrepreneurs (Prentice-Hall Pearson), and has published research in Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice and Journal of Management Studies. He cofounded three university spin-out companies in the life sciences sector and facilitated more than $10 million of private finance into technology start-ups as the manager of angel investment networks.

Karima Bouaiss has a PhD (Burgundy University – France) in banking regulation. She is also Associate Professor at Poitiers University. Her research interest is the governance of banks and listed firms. She is the (co-)author of several articles published in French and International scientific journals.

Julienne Brabet is Professor of Management at Université Paris Est Créteil where she is in charge of the “Management and Consulting” master programs and codirecting the master “Managing CSR.” She is a member of the scholarly association RIODD’s (International Network of Research on Organisations and Sustainable Development) board and scientific committee, Vice-President of the SFM (Société Française de Management). She is currently the chair of EURAM (European Academy of Management) 2016 Conference, has been one of EURAM Vice-Presidents since 2011 and member of EMR (European Management Review) editorial board since 2014.

Her researches are focused on the links between globalization, governance, strategic, and organizational logics and the modes of workers’ management. Her former publications have been instrumental in structuring the French management research debate on paradigms, in particular in the field of HRM (Repenser la GRH, 1993, Paris, Economica). In her latest publications, she analyses the role of CSR in the development of a post-Fordian compromise.

Denis Frydrych is a Doctoral Candidate at the University of Edinburgh Business School. His research on entrepreneurial crowdfunding studies entrepreneurs’ activities to explain how narrative, legitimacy, and networking tactics are exploited for fundraising purposes. His research on crowdfunding has been accepted for publication in Venture Capital: An International Journal of Entrepreneurial Finance. Denis has presented his research on crowdfunding at leading international conferences and workshops. He has also lectured on entrepreneurial crowdfunding at the University of Edinburgh Business School.

Liz Gerber is Associate Professor of Design in the School of Engineering and School of Communication at Northwestern University, and Director of Research and the founder of Design for America. She is an expert in crowdfunding and designs products, interactions, and services across a diverse set of domains including healthcare, transportation, and the entertainment industries. Her work has been awarded at the MacArthur Digital Media and Learning Competition, National Science Foundation, Venture Well, Core 77, and Ashoka, and featured in such venues as Wall Street Journal, NPR, ABC, Harvard Business Review, Forbes, and Fast Company. Liz holds a MS and PhD from Stanford University and a BA from Dartmouth College.

Julie Hui is a PhD Candidate in the Delta Lab at Northwestern University’s Segal Design Institute. She studies how novice innovators leverage social technologies and online communities to perform their work. Specifically, she focuses on informal learning and the role of technology in crowdfunding communities. Her work has been published in human-computer interaction and design conferences and journals.

Rémi Jardat is full Professor at the ISTEC Business School and the Director of Research. He is also associate researcher at Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers, Paris, in the LIRSA Lab (E. A. no. 4603). He has conducted many researches about power relationships and governance within diverse organizations, concerning in particular coops and mutuals. He has taken part to a research project about operational risks in banking industries, funded by a public-private partnership at Pôle de Compétitivité Mondial Finance-Innovation, Paris. He is one of the coauthors of the French adaptation of Denise Rousseau’s Psychological Contract in Organizations (Pearson, 2014). He is currently chairing the Strategic Interest Group Business for Society at the European Academy of Management (EURAM). He acts as a member of the editorial board of Society and Business Review and as an Associate Editor of European Management Review.

Franck Juredieu is Senior Lecturer at the law faculty, University of Tours and member of CRDP Research Laboratory. Author of a thesis on the legal act, his main research interests law guarantees and law contracts.

Tony Kinder is Senior Lecturer in Entrepreneurship at the University of Edinburgh Business School. He has a BSc (Bradford), MA (Bradford), MBA (Edinburgh) and PhD (Edinburgh), MSc e-learning (Edinburgh) now M Teach (Edinburgh). His current projects involve the EU funded LIPSE (Learning from Innovation in Public Sector Environments), where he studies public administration and electronic commerce in Europe. He served as chair for various venture capital companies for 15 years.

Ulpiana Kocollari is Research Fellow at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia. Her research topics are corporate social responsibility, social innovation, and social entrepreneurship. She is lecturer in Business Ethics and Sustainability Reporting. Her main publications focus on the different way social dimension can affect the firm’s performance and its management model. She is also founder of an academic start up – “GoodVenture,” which mission is to support crowdfunding activities for entrepreneurial projects.

Thomas Lambert is Assistant Professor of Finance at Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University. His research interests mainly lie between political economics and corporate finance, but Thomas has also side interests in entrepreneurial finance. His work has been presented at major conferences around the world, including the AEA, EFA, SFS Cavalcade and FIRS meetings, and published in leading academic journals, including the Journal of Business Venturing. Thomas holds a PhD degree in Finance jointly from the Université catholique de Louvain and Université Lille 2, an MA in Economics from the Université catholique de Louvain and has been a visiting scholar at the London Business School.

Isabelle Maque is Associate Professor at the IAE (Institute of Business Administration), University of Poitiers and she has created and is in charge of the MIM (Master’s in International Management) programme, which is taught entirely in English and welcomes every year close to 12 different nationalities. Her main research interests cover bank(s)-firm relationships, funding of SMEs through banks but also recently through the development of crowdfunding and more broadly anything linked to the development of SMEs. She has published in French speaking and international journals and books, with French and International coauthors.

Sébastien Mayoux is Associate Professor at the IAE (Institute of Business Administration), University of Poitiers and consultant for TEN FRANCE’S law firm. He acts also as a member of the workgroup in the Poitiers Court of appeal.

His main research interests cover labor law (especially breach of contract) and business law (especially the development of crowdfunding). He has published in French reviews (La semaine juridique, Jurisprudence sociale Lamy) and books (LGDJ).

Jérôme Méric is Professor at the IAE (Institute of Business Administration), University of Poitiers and he is the director of CEREGE Research Laboratory. His main research interests cover formal and informal dynamics of control in organizations, as well as the control of the impact of business on society (especially the development of crowdfunding). He is in charge of the “Business for Society” General Track at the EURAM annual conference. He has published in French speaking and international journals and books, and he acts as member of the editorial board of ranked journals (Academy of Management Learning and Education, Society and Business Review, Comptabilité-Contrôle-Audit).

Sophie Nivoix (PhD, 1996) is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Law and Social Sciences, University of Poitiers. She is also Contributing Associate Professor at the IAE (Institute of Business Administration) of Poitiers and the treasurer of the academic international business association ATLAS-AFMI. Her main research interests cover market finance and the analysis of risk and return of stocks. She has published in French speaking and international journals and books.

Gwenaëlle Oruezabala is Senior Lecturer in Marketing at the Marketing and Strategy Department of Poitiers University School of Management (IAE) in France. Her current areas of research are in business-to-business marketing and she has special interest in how organizations are raising funds to meet their strategic and marketing goals. She is member of academic associations in international management and acts as editorial board of international ranked journals (Modern Management Science & Engineering-MMSE, Revue Internationale PME, and Revue Management et Avenir).

Fatima Zahra Ouchrif is a PhD student at the IAE (Institute of Business Administration), University of Poitiers. Her research field is market finance and international markets, and includes crowdfunding.

Ivana Pais is Associate Professor of Economic Sociology at Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan. Her research interest focuses on social networks in labour markets, organizations, entrepreneurship and new ways of working through social media. Her most recent publications are about crowdfunding, coworking, and timebanking.

Yvon Pesqueux <yvon.pesqueux@cnam.fr, lirsa.cnam.fr >  is Professor at CNAM (Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers), head of the Chair “Développement des Systèmes d’Organisation” PhD in Economics, University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (1975) and Doctor honoris causa, University of Galati, Romania (2011), his special interests are Management, Philosophy and Ethics, Business and Society, Corporate Social Responsibility. He has published several scientific articles. His last books are Epistémologie des sciences de gestion, Vuibert, Paris, 2013 (in collaboration with Alain-Charles MARTINET), Contrat psychologique et organisations – Comprendre les accords écrits et non écrits, Pearson France, Paris, 2014 (in collaboration with Denise ROUSSEAU and Pascale de ROZARIO & Rémi JARDAT). He is also Treasurer of IFSAM (2015–2016) and Editor of Society and Business Review (Emerald Publishing – www.emeraldinsight.com/sbr.htm).

Simon G. Peter is teaching at Libreville Superior Technology Institute in Gabon and is member of the research laboratory of Management Sciences (LARSIG). He is also Associate Professor at the Management department of the University of Pau (UPPA) in France. His current research is focused on the institutionalization of the microfinance market and he has a special interest in all microfinance mechanisms established in West Africa to provide credit services to small businesses. Since 3 years, he is an active member of the organizing committee of the international conference on microfinance as a tool for development in Africa held in Libreville.

Jose Luis Retolaza is Senior Research Fellow at Deusto Business School and Director of AURKILAN Institute for Business Ethics Research in Bilbao (Spain); also he is a Visiting Scholar at Darden Business School in United States during the second term of 2015. Jose Luis is the Director of Global Economic Accounting (GEAccounting) company. The current research focuses on Stakeholder Theory, Social Value and Social Economy. He is the Scientific President at CIF (Congress of Financial Innovations) since 2013 boosted by ECRI (Ethics in Finance & Social Value) research group. He is author of several publications in scientific journals national and international, and he has participated in numerous national and international conferences. He acts as reviewer member of ranked journals (Business & Society, CIRIEC, INNOVAR, Society for Business Ethics or Contemporary Economics).

Leire San-Jose is Associate Professor at University of the Basque Country in Bilbao (Spain), Visiting Research Fellow at University of Huddersfield in United Kingdom and Visiting Scholar at Darden Business School in United States and she is the director of ECRI (Ethics in Finance & Social Value) Research Group. His main research interests cover ethics in finance area, ethics in payment for suppliers, stakeholder theory, cash management, social value and new financing type of funds as crowdfunding. She was Scientific Committee President at EBEN in 2010 and organizes the CIF (Congress of Financial Innovations) conference since 2013. She has published in many international journals, and she acts as reviewer member of ranked journals (Journal of Business Ethics, European Management Review, Business & Society).

Ritu Srivastava is Assistant Professor at Birla Institute of Management Technology, India. Her areas of academic interest are business expansion strategies, internationalization of Indian SMEs, and value creation in emerging markets. Her doctoral research work is in the area of cross border mergers and acquisitions.

Abbey Stemler is Assistant Professor in the Department of Business Law and Ethics at Indiana University. She is also a practicing attorney and owns and manages a real estate and hotel company in Bloomington, IN. Abbey’s research interests focus on small business and start-up finance and the legal aspects of entrepreneurship in the sharing economy. She has been published in a variety of journals such as The Northwestern Journal of International Law and Business, The Ohio State Entrepreneurial Business Law Journal, and The Minnesota Journal of International Law.

Jorge Renato Verschoore is Professor and Researcher at the Business and Management School of Unisinos University. Currently, he is the leader of Geredes/CNPq (Brazilian Group for Inter-organizational Network Studies). Regarding intellectual production, he has written books and articles on the Social Science field, concerning organizational management, cooperation, and networks. His main interest nowadays is related to network governance, cooperative strategy, interorganizational relations, and social network analysis.

Rovian Dill Zuquetto is Professor of entrepreneurship and as a consultant has working with companies to develop innovation projects and innovative ecosystems. His main research interests cover the existing benefits in the social networks (including crowdsourcing environments). Chairman at Trigas, a high technology company in Brazil that develop energy solutions through biomass.