Supervisors: Carsten Bergenholtz & Lars Frederiksen
Discussants: Nicole Siebold & Christian Elbæk

Abstract
In this study, we investigate how venture idea assessments from prestigious and non-prestigious external stakeholders impact effort in venture idea revision by changing opportunity confidence. Building on cultural evolution theory, we hypothesize that optimistic venture idea assessments increase opportunity confidence and therefore in turn decrease effort to revise venture ideas. This effect is stronger when the assessment is received from a prestigious stakeholder. To test our hypotheses, we conducted two online experiments (total n = 600) following a manipulation-of-mediation design. With overall empirical support for our hypotheses, our study contributes insights into the heterogeneous effects of stakeholder assessment and the role of opportunity confidence.

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