11/04/2025
By Gerardo Bastos Neto

The Department of Marketing, Entrepreneurship, and Innovation at the Manning School of Business invites you to attend a doctoral dissertation proposal defense by Gerardo Bastos Neto.

Date: Tuesday, November 18, 2025
Time: 1 – 2:30 p.m.
Location: Hybrid, Pulichino Tong Business Center (PTB) 258 and via Zoom.

Dissertation Title: Not All Pivots Are Equal: An Identity-Based Theory of Pivoting Behavior

Committee Members:

  • Michael Ciuchta, Ph.D. (Co-chair) – Department of Marketing, Entrepreneurship & Innovation, Manning School of Business, UMass Lowell
  • Ann Kronrod, Ph.D. (Co-chair) – Department of Marketing, Entrepreneurship & Innovation, Manning School of Business, UMass Lowell
  • Steven Tello, Ed.D. – Department of Marketing, Entrepreneurship & Innovation, Manning School of Business, UMass Lowell

Abstract

Entrepreneurs routinely receive negative feedback from investors, customers, and mentors, yet founders facing similar feedback often respond in strikingly different ways. Some ignore it, others make incremental adjustments, and some fundamentally reorient their ventures. This dissertation develops a theory explaining why similar feedback produces different pivoting behaviors, exploring both whether founders pivot and how far they move from their original course when they do.

Drawing on identity control theory and construal-level theory, this dissertation develops a model in which entrepreneurial role identity, role–feedback congruence, venture identification, and founder–venture construal jointly shape founders’ strategic responses. It proposes that when feedback aligns with a salient role identity (e.g., product feedback for an inventor or market feedback for a businessperson), it feels identity-diagnostic and triggers stronger perceived threat. Venture identification amplifies this reaction by linking venture outcomes to the self, while founder–venture construal determines how that threat is processed, with concrete, close thinking leading to defensive persistence and abstract, distant thinking encouraging broader adaptation.

The findings are expected to make several contributions. Theoretically, the study identifies role–feedback congruence as a central mechanism explaining when and why entrepreneurs experience identity threat in response to negative feedback. By integrating identity control theory and construal-level theory, it also advances understanding of how these threats are processed cognitively through founder–venture construal, showing that cognitive framing determines whether threat results in rigidity or change. This integration provides a more comprehensive explanation of how identity-based feedback evaluation shapes entrepreneurial adaptation. Empirically, the study employs a multi-method design that combines controlled experiments with survey data from entrepreneurs to examine both the likelihood and extent of pivoting behavior. These contributions, therefore, extend identity theory to the entrepreneurial domain and clarify the cognitive and emotional mechanisms through which feedback-induced identity threats influence entrepreneurial adaptation.

All interested students and faculty members are invited to attend.