Professional power, job security, and decision making in project funding: The assessors' perspective

Abstract

We examined the influence of assessors' professional power and social connections on their decision making regarding evaluation for funding of new business projects, as well as the moderating effect of the assessors' own job security. Using 1,517 observations from 2017 Beijing Innofund data, we found that the assessors' professional power and social connections were both positively related to their evaluation scores. The job security of the assessors significantly positively moderated the effect of their social connections, but the moderating effect of job security on their professional power was nonsignificant. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.