12663: Who Says it? Analyzing Team and Evaluator Backgrounds on Persuasiveness in Grant Applications (session 26090)

Sunday, July 27, 2025

15:30 - 17:00 CEST (GMT+2)

Location: Bella Center: Hall B- B2-m6

Session Type: Paper Session
Orientation: Research
Shareable link: https://cdmcd.co/nR6zdz

Author(s)

MM

Michael S. McLeod

-, United States
JS

Joshua Sears

U. of North Carolina, Wilmington, United States
CG

Craig Galbraith

University of North Carolina Wilmington, United States
GM

Gregory Merrill

-, United States
AD

Alex F. DeNoble

San Diego State U., United States

Utilizing rhetorical theory, we investigate how logical, emotional, and character framings and backgrounds of entrepreneurs and business plan evaluators affect evaluators’ perceptions. We find that relatively more logical framing improves evaluator perceptions. However, we find that the backgrounds of the entrepreneurial team and evaluators alter the impact that the rhetoric has on evaluator perceptions: entrepreneurial teams and evaluators possessing scientific backgrounds attenuate the positive effect of relatively more logical framing. We analyze a unique dataset of 2,341 evaluator observations of 475 technology venture applications for Department of Defense grants to test our hypotheses.

view paper (if available)