Academy of Management Proceedings

Increasing studies focus on the antecedents of entrepreneurial pivoting after venture failure. This study adds to this research stream by examining how the dynamism of entrepreneurs' psychological capital – captured as psychological capital discrepancy – affects pivoting in crowdfunding. We propose a research model considering the moderating effects of funding performance feedback grounded in social cognitive theory. To test our hypotheses, we constructed a unique dataset of 445 matched pairs of reward-based crowdfunding projects with prior failure experience from Kickstarter. Our hierarchical regression results reveal an inverted U-shaped relationship between psychological capital discrepancy and the likelihood of project category pivoting. Furthermore, our moderating analysis results show that the funding ratio strengthens this relationship, while funding speed weakens it. Robustness checks affirmed the reliability of our findings. This research advances theory by clarifying how dynamic psychological capital influences post-failure pivoting behavior in crowdfunding. We also provide several practical implications.