Restaurant Crowdfunding Activities and African American Restaurateurs' Financing Experiences: From Macroeconomic Policies to Ethnic Enclaves
type: CreativeWork
description: Gleaning from restaurant funding behaviors in conventional markets, macro-level factors have a significant impact on restaurant funding behaviors. Yet, existing restaurant crowdfunding research has mostly examined micro-level project attributes without considering influential factors at the macroeconomic level. Additionally, notwithstanding the National Restaurant Association’s call to support a greater number of African American restaurateurs, the financing behaviors regarding race remain understudied in the restaurant industry. Finally, albeit the clear differences between the conventional and the crowdfunding financing mechanisms, there is scant research on restauranteurs’ perceived differences between these two funding environments. Therefore, the current study aims to fill the abovementioned literature gap by examining macro- and micro-level attributes in restaurant financing. Study 1 examines how the two goals of agency theory—incentive alignment and risk-aversion mitigation—affect entrepreneurs’ financing behaviors. The state-year level of entrepreneurial activities is examined through quadratic regression analyses. Results show that state-level free market policies and social safety-net spending have an inverted U-shaped relationship with restaurant entrepreneurs' crowdfunding activities. Study 2 explores strategies that African American restaurateurs can use to secure financing in the conventional capital market with a qualitative design and a grounded theory approach through interviews with African American and non-Hispanic White restaurateurs. The proposed African American Startup Framework (AASF) consists of eight themes and 23 subthemes. AASF identifies strategies that African American restaurateurs leverage cultural, social, and economic capital to solve financing issues. The contextual impact of racial membership on financing success indicates that racial membership has a perceived negative impact on the group’s ability to secure restaurant financing …
abstract: Gleaning from restaurant funding behaviors in conventional markets, macro-level factors have a significant impact on restaurant funding behaviors. Yet, existing restaurant crowdfunding research has mostly examined micro-level project attributes without considering influential factors at the macroeconomic level. Additionally, notwithstanding the National Restaurant Association’s call to support a greater number of African American restaurateurs, the financing behaviors regarding race remain understudied in the restaurant industry. Finally, albeit the clear differences between the conventional and the crowdfunding financing mechanisms, there is scant research on restauranteurs’ perceived differences between these two funding environments. Therefore, the current study aims to fill the abovementioned literature gap by examining macro- and micro-level attributes in restaurant financing. Study 1 examines how the two goals of agency theory—incentive alignment and risk-aversion mitigation—affect entrepreneurs’ financing behaviors. The state-year level of entrepreneurial activities is examined through quadratic regression analyses. Results show that state-level free market policies and social safety-net spending have an inverted U-shaped relationship with restaurant entrepreneurs' crowdfunding activities. Study 2 explores strategies that African American restaurateurs can use to secure financing in the conventional capital market with a qualitative design and a grounded theory approach through interviews with African American and non-Hispanic White restaurateurs. The proposed African American Startup Framework (AASF) consists of eight themes and 23 subthemes. AASF identifies strategies that African American restaurateurs leverage cultural, social, and economic capital to solve financing issues. The contextual impact of racial membership on financing success indicates that racial membership has a perceived negative impact on the group’s ability to secure restaurant financing …
author: Mao-Clark, Xiaodan
language: eng
keywords: small business, macroeconomic policies, African American, crowdfunding.
date published: 2023-08
date modified: 2026-07-24T02:32:12Z
provider: University of Houston
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Houston

PropertyValue
property ID: Handle
value: https://hdl.handle.net/10657/15960