Safe Bets or Hot Hands? How Status and Celebrity Influence Strategic Alliance Formations by Newly Public Firms

Social approval assets derive their value from favorable stakeholder perceptions. Past research has focused primarily on their role as signals that reduce stakeholders’ perceived uncertainty about the firm. However, social approval assets can also serve as frames that influence how other information is interpreted. We theorize how the frames associated with two social approval assets—status and celebrity—influence the interpretation of equivocal...