Evaluators, tasked with making funding decisions under conditions of incomplete information and uncertainty, are particularly susceptible to the influence of temporality and gender expectations. Drawing on the literature on signaling theory and gender expectations, this research examines the importance of past temporal focus in determining innovation funding decisions. Our empirical evidence suggests that innovation projects that focus on past events are more likely to receive favorable evaluations as past temporal focus signals better learning capacity among innovators. Moreover, we build on the signal credibility and visibility literature to support the notion that female-dominated presenting teams that emphasize past actions receive higher evaluations because the learning capacity signal is deemed more credible for women and female evaluators are more reactive to past-related signals, leading to higher evaluations for innovations with a past-focused narrative. Our study contributes to the literature on temporal focus and signal effectiveness and provides implications for mitigating the gender gap in accessing funding through temporal rhetoric.

创新基金评审者在信息不完全和不确定性较高的情况下做资助决策, 容易受到时间和性别期望的影响。本文借鉴信号理论和性别期望的文献, 考察了过去时间焦点在决定创新资助决策中的影响机制。我们的实证证据表明, 采纳过去时间焦点叙事的创新项目更有可能获得积极的评价, 这是因为过去时间焦点能有效传递创新者的学习能力。此外, 借鉴信号可信度和可见性文献, 我们发现女性主导的展示团队采纳过去时间焦点叙事时会获得更高评价, 因为来自女性的学习能力信号被认为更加可信; 女性评审者对过去时间焦点反应更强, 导致采纳过去时间焦点叙事的创新项目获得更高评价。本文的研究结果对时间焦点和信号有效性的文献做出了贡献, 并为通过时间叙事策略缓解资助决策中的性别差距提供了启示。